Jocko Podcast 59 w/ Brian Stann - Lessons from Battle That Apply to Life

2017-01-25T17:49:28Z

Join the conversation on Twitter: @jockowillink @brianstann @echocharles Brian Stann, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, awarded the Silver Star, the nation's third-highest award for valor in combat. Retired UFC Fighter. UFC Commentator 0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:25 - Brian Stann Intro and Background 0:11:52 - Importance of Standards and Discipline 0:21:56 - The Leadership Factory: What makes a good leader vs bad leader. 0:38:45 - Brian Stann Enters the Marine Corps 0:48:10 - Brian Stann's Entry To Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) 0:54:00 - Combat Life 1:30:21 - The Burden of The Leader 1:44:34 - More Ops in Iraq 1:59:48 - Brian Stann Goes into Professional MMA & The UFC 2:18:55 - Hired Heroes USA - Jobs Program for Vets 2:21:27 - The Guardian Project - Martial Arts for At Risk Youth 2:26:52 - Closing Questions and Thoughts 2:27:57 - Support: Cool Onnit, Amazon, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book) and The Muster002 2:39:09 - Closing Gratitude

AI summary of episode

And you're going to hear this too when you, when you get off this podcast and people going to hit you up on social media, you're going to hear from young, so you're going to hear from soldiers and Marines that are going to ask you questions because they listen to this. I think that a lot of people, you know, you see the explosions take place with the IEDs and you know, the wars that we were involved in were, you know, the main weapon of the enemy was the IED. And he said to me, you know, I just don't know if I, you want to know if I made the right decision. And you know, life was, you know, he was, you know, the mission gets done and all that, but next day, life comes to me. You know, if you grow from six people that you know pretty well that you trust and all of a sudden you got to staff of a hundred people. So I got to fight career that I've got to push through and I can't just hey, look, I'm going to take seven months off here to get through this because I got bills to pay. Let's hit the turn where we know we're going to get right to the people that need us. When I got a Kevlar on, I mean, if someone's trying to snipe me or they're trying to shoot the mini machine gun and they see they're like, oh man, I got this dude. They were out trying to get after it and they got to a point where they said, hey, we think we know where these guys are. And I thought that that was probably the best opportunity for me because if I was going to try to then be a team guy, I was going to have to go into the Navy as a surface warfare officer. So it's a little bit different whereas in the Marine Corps, the leadership, you know, a very young age you're going to have 40 some Marines. And you know what's great as you know as I was talking to you on the way over here. So this is their way of saying, you know, hey, you know, go fly a kite. So that the game plan going in was hey, we're going to take van der Leif down a little bit in this fight and disrupt him. And so it got really difficult, but the one thing that stuck with them, that they could understand that they're perspective they got was, hey, look, if you quit on me, that's one less guy to man the post and top of this patrol base to keep this roadway clear. Like anybody hated it, but the friends I made there, the opportunities in the pathway to the Marine Corps, which still to this day, I don't know if I'll ever be as good at any job because I wasn't being a Marine infantry officer. When you can lead an initiative like that, it helps you feel like, hey, you know what I am? But you know, you got a school name like Jockel. That's a lot going through your head when you've got four vehicles, two tanks and aircraft you're trying to control as a 24 year old kid. And he says, you know, hey, hey, Jockel, he was tore up, you know, he was tore up his friends. Like what you just said, guys would say that stuff to me sometimes like, you could have gone left to right. You know, people have this idea that because you were a certain rank everybody's going to listen. Is there anything that you didn't expect that you wish somebody would have told you going into that first firefight for someone that's in basic training right now or at the basic school right now? Hey, I know we're going to work this today coach, but my butterfly guard is completely ineffective And you go around and you talk to different executives who are having trouble well, you know, you know, it's the millennials and what they do and what they do and this do. And I don't mean get them as in terms of hey, they're going to go and they're going to go kill that person. You're going to have to let your leaders lead and you're going to let the after let. I always tell, you know, sometimes my fighters will say, oh, you know, I'm not feeling it. Too many people said I was going to wash out that I was going to be exposed couldn't do it. And as we got settled and started identifying targets, and as you know, in that scenario, the acoustics and in the movement, the amount of people, we are the most precise military in the history of this planet. But if you're going to be a leader, you got to be able to receive that information and find a way to get better. And it was really tough because here I am, you know, I'm around these Marines and I'm around, you know, some of my buddies shot at it And in not cutting any corners like other fighters were at the time, but starting to figure it out and it all just came down to discipline where a lot of martial artists don't want to spend time. So, you know, my uncles, my aunts and my mom, the thought of me going to the Naval Academy is a big deal. And I'm going to really try hard to make sure that you know what I am in charge. And I got this a little lot of work, but when J.P. died, I found out, right before I had my last amateur fight, I was an infantry officer course. How much are you thinking at that time like, I'm going to go for this MMA thing? If you aren't finding a way to add value to your organization to your team every day, then you're wasting time, you're wasting money, and somebody's going to take that spot. Like, all right, he's obviously not going away. But, you know, we don't have the luxury of knowing what's going to happen to combat situation. it must, it's a miracle and luck and everything else because when the enemy sees a target like that, man, they just pour fire onto it because they know there's creating a total catastrophic situation for us. You know, I went there thinking, I'm going to be the next Roger Stover. And if you can't mentally be in the state where you're going to fight best that night, you got a problem and you're in the wrong place. And you know, when, when that comes out, we're going to grab a bunch of make it mandatory for these kids. I establish which vehicles going to be the tow vehicle for our down vehicle where the casualty's going to go.

Most common words

Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcasts number 59.
[00:00:04] With echo Charles and me, Jockel willing.
[00:00:08] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:09] Good evening.
[00:00:16] Their screams are the worst.
[00:00:20] We're more than 100 meters away on the other side of the river,
[00:00:25] but I can hear Marines dying.
[00:00:27] Their armored vehicle hit a landmine.
[00:00:33] It caught fire with 15 men aboard.
[00:00:39] They scream as they burn alive.
[00:00:45] The radio chatter is desperate, almost hysterical.
[00:00:53] Nobody can get to them.
[00:00:54] There will be no salvation.
[00:01:00] Only a torturous death in the flames.
[00:01:06] From our position across the river,
[00:01:08] we hear every agonizing moment
[00:01:12] and can see their funeral pyre rising over the riverbank.
[00:01:16] I can do nothing.
[00:01:21] It is the most helpless,
[00:01:25] in raging feeling I've ever experienced.
[00:01:31] I have no way to get across the water to those burning men.
[00:01:35] It takes forever for the last screams to fade away.
[00:01:54] And that is an excerpt from a book called Heart For The Fight.
[00:02:00] And it's written by a guy named Brian Stan.
[00:02:06] And if you don't know who Brian Stan is,
[00:02:11] you can Google him.
[00:02:15] He's a son, a father, a husband.
[00:02:19] He was the WEC light heavyweight champion of the world.
[00:02:22] He's a UFC veteran.
[00:02:26] 11 flights in the UFC.
[00:02:28] With some wins and some losses against some of the best fighters in the world.
[00:02:37] He's also a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.
[00:02:42] With two tours to Iraq as a platoon commander.
[00:02:47] And as a company ex-il.
[00:02:52] And I am honored tonight to actually have Brian
[00:02:57] Stan with us here as a guest.
[00:03:02] Mr. Brian Stan.
[00:03:05] Welcome to this show.
[00:03:06] I gotta tell you that I have not been introduced like that before.
[00:03:10] That's an exerted that book that I could honestly say I have laid eyes on.
[00:03:15] I don't even know how many years I forget the year.
[00:03:18] We released it some powerful writing by my ghostwriter John Bruning.
[00:03:22] I think it's a tough memory. It's one of those ones that we kind of buried deep down and think about just from time to time.
[00:03:30] But certainly when you at times, maybe you take things for granted in life.
[00:03:35] It's good to go back to that moment.
[00:03:38] You know, and realize that whatever I may be whining about or whatever I think is difficult at the time is a heck of a lot easier than it once was.
[00:03:46] And I need to be grateful.
[00:03:48] Get off my button.
[00:03:49] Yeah. I think that a lot of people, you know, you see the explosions take place with the IEDs and you know, the wars that we were involved in were, you know, the main weapon of the enemy was the IED.
[00:04:04] And even when we made thicker heavier armored vehicles or like track vehicles, when they get hit with an IED, even though it might withstand some of the impact, this fire start and it's a nightmare.
[00:04:15] And this is the nightmare you described right there.
[00:04:17] And you know, I want to get into that. I want to get into the combat that you experienced. But before we do that, the first of all, like the people that listen to this show, not everyone, even watches UFC, not everyone knows about you.
[00:04:34] So just kind of give a little bit of a background on growing up. Let's take it back to scritten.
[00:04:42] Absolutely.
[00:04:43] So moved around a lot. I was actually, he says, born in Japan.
[00:04:48] And around that time when my mom had come back to the states, my father left.
[00:04:54] And so group of Northeast Pennsylvania moved around quite a bit.
[00:04:58] But got into sports in early age. And I had a phenomenal mom.
[00:05:03] And I think not having a dad really affected my sister a lot more than it affected me.
[00:05:09] But even from an early age, I knew that the military was going to be an option.
[00:05:18] From the days of being a young kid watching silly movies like Iron Eagle, there was something.
[00:05:24] There was not called Iron Eagle, silly.
[00:05:27] That's like your classic to them.
[00:05:31] But for me, there was always something to it that that rang is special to me.
[00:05:36] And you know, what I found is growing up without a dad, you tend to want to impress every male influence you have in your life.
[00:05:45] So every time I went out for a team, I wanted to be the hardest worker on the team.
[00:05:49] I'd run through a wall for my coach.
[00:05:51] And that continued all the way through high school and then all of a sudden playing high school football,
[00:05:56] I started to get recruited by some good schools.
[00:05:59] And not many people in my family had gone to college.
[00:06:01] Certainly I'd expected to go to college, but never expected to get recruited to go play somewhere.
[00:06:07] So that was a different experience for me.
[00:06:10] I didn't always handle it the best.
[00:06:12] But when the Naval Academy came knocking, you know, I knew that's where I wanted to go.
[00:06:18] West Point started recruiting me early as a junior.
[00:06:21] I took my films, my tapes to the Naval Academy.
[00:06:24] There was just something about that place and I wanted to go there.
[00:06:27] So I decided before I make a decision, let me visit West Point.
[00:06:32] Let me visit the Naval Academy in a four day time period. I'll visit both and make my decision.
[00:06:36] When I went to West Point, one of the football coaches was supposed to meet me there.
[00:06:41] Never showed.
[00:06:42] So one of the players took me around campus showed me some stuff, but it was still beautiful.
[00:06:46] I mean, greater than any, you know, scritten to one of the poorer cities in America.
[00:06:50] It's not nice.
[00:06:51] So, you know, my uncles, my aunts and my mom, the thought of me going to the Naval Academy is a big deal.
[00:06:57] I remember my track coach and high school tell me, Brian, listen, this is a big deal.
[00:07:01] It's a great opportunity. There's a lot of things in your life that can change by going here.
[00:07:05] So yeah, but you know, I'm getting recruited by some of these Ivy League schools to eat.
[00:07:08] It's not the same and I don't think you're going to fit in.
[00:07:11] I honestly'm going to be honest with you, Brian.
[00:07:13] My track coaches are bright guy.
[00:07:15] So two days later, I go to the Naval Academy and I hand them my tape.
[00:07:17] Now, they hadn't even started recruiting me yet, but those coaches were so nice to my mom.
[00:07:22] And by doing that, they recruited my mom. They were so respectful to her.
[00:07:28] The water was there. So pretty. Okay.
[00:07:31] I'm in and I had made that decision early that that's where I wanted to go and focus on that.
[00:07:38] Did some summer school to take some classes to boost my AP courses in high school just to make sure they have to go to the prepschool first.
[00:07:44] I want to go right through the Naval Academy. And so that in a really quick nutshell, football was a vehicle along with my academics were good, but you know, having a three, five GPA and a 12, 10 and your SATs.
[00:07:57] Isn't it normally going to get you into the Naval Academy?
[00:08:00] Football was was the vehicle that got me there.
[00:08:02] And I could remember prom night lifting weights in the weight room with my rented talks in the locker.
[00:08:08] I was there all by myself. I had the security code.
[00:08:10] I was, you know, when the only guys who worked all summer long was the only white guy where I worked in this tomato plant.
[00:08:17] And I would work to help pay for the high school. I went to my mom took me out of public schooling, put me in this good high school because I got suspended a couple times in middle school.
[00:08:25] And it was one of the harder decisions, but one of the best decisions that that she made and pushed me towards.
[00:08:30] Because the teachers at that school, when they saw me having this opportunity, they helped.
[00:08:35] Hey, let's help Brian get the Naval Academy. Go there to play football, but you know,
[00:08:39] really get himself on a great trajectory.
[00:08:41] And there, there's not a day or regret it.
[00:08:44] There were definitely days I couldn't stand being at the Naval Academy.
[00:08:47] Like anybody hated it, but the friends I made there, the opportunities in the pathway to the Marine Corps, which still to this day,
[00:08:55] I don't know if I'll ever be as good at any job because I wasn't being a Marine infantry officer.
[00:09:01] I just, I don't know that.
[00:09:02] And when you got there, you're, they, the type of football that they were playing didn't really match your, because you were a quarterback.
[00:09:12] And I was right.
[00:09:13] And so in the book, you're saying that your, your type of football didn't really match what they wanted to do.
[00:09:18] No, it was a rude awakening for me.
[00:09:20] You know, I went there thinking, I'm going to be the next Roger Stover.
[00:09:23] And we all did.
[00:09:24] And then all of a sudden you start to see all these other kids from all over the country.
[00:09:27] Wow, they're good to, I never really run the option before.
[00:09:30] And they've got guys from the prep school that already done a year in the system and did that system in high school that can run the option.
[00:09:36] So next thing you know, I'm getting moved to wider seabrum, get moved to safety, then I'm getting moved to linebacker.
[00:09:40] And I have to figure out how to play these positions.
[00:09:42] And it was one of the best lessons I ever learned as a young man, where I had to make a decision, I'm going to contribute to this team.
[00:09:50] I'm not going to be a starter.
[00:09:52] I'm not going to be a star.
[00:09:54] So the best contributions I can make as a leader are to help mentally prepare the younger guys to play.
[00:10:02] So my senior year was competing for the starting outside linebacker position.
[00:10:06] And we had this young kid named Bobby McLaren, who was an animal.
[00:10:10] I mean an animal, but he was uncontrollable.
[00:10:12] He could not understand the defense at all.
[00:10:14] He's still wild man.
[00:10:15] If I'm all around knocking over anything he touched, but he was an idiot.
[00:10:18] If a football was an engineering major, really bright kid, but I'm more on football.
[00:10:23] All right, so I'm a senior.
[00:10:24] I'm going to help this kid out.
[00:10:26] And we're in two days, and I'm competing for the starting job, and I'm helping this kid out who's third string.
[00:10:30] And he's getting frustrated, and then all of a sudden he starts to get it.
[00:10:33] And he's starting to grasp on.
[00:10:35] And slowly but surely I could see this kid taking not only my job, but the job of the guy who was ahead of me, who I was competing with.
[00:10:41] And you know, the bottom line was, is I had to find a way to contribute value to the team.
[00:10:47] Obviously I have a special teams contributor, but leadership was going to be the biggest thing I contributed.
[00:10:52] And that made me a very valuable member of the team that season.
[00:10:57] And it taught me great lessons moving forward both from the Marine Corps, and especially now in my job.
[00:11:03] If you aren't finding a way to add value to your organization to your team every day, then you're wasting time, you're wasting money, and somebody's going to take that spot.
[00:11:14] Somebody will come along and take that spot.
[00:11:16] I don't care how successful you get.
[00:11:18] You can't take life for granted every day you got to add value.
[00:11:22] I learned that lesson early in my football coach, my linebacker coach liked me the most.
[00:11:27] I was his favorite guy, and he would admit that to me in our personal meetings.
[00:11:30] But the end of the day, he told me, Brian, I get paid.
[00:11:33] I feed my family to put the best players on the field who are going to help us win games.
[00:11:38] I really wish that was you right now.
[00:11:40] But it's not.
[00:11:42] And those are hard conversations to listen to.
[00:11:45] But if you're going to be a leader, you got to be able to receive that information and find a way to get better.
[00:11:51] Yeah, you know, speaking of that, so you actually they fired the coach that you had your first three years.
[00:11:57] New coach came in, and I'm going to go to the book here.
[00:11:59] It's your senior year.
[00:12:01] Two days are brutal or deals, detested by every player who is step foot on a football field.
[00:12:07] That summer, our new coach Paul Johnson used two days to make a statement.
[00:12:14] He made us start practicing before dawn every day at 0, 4, 45.
[00:12:19] We reported to the field, and Johnson's new coaching staff beat us half to death with repeated fourth quarter drills.
[00:12:25] We ran, we hit.
[00:12:27] None of this no contact drilling.
[00:12:29] Johnson spared no one.
[00:12:31] But mid morning, guys were puking where they stood.
[00:12:34] I love this right here.
[00:12:36] No wonder why you pussy's went, oh, and 11.
[00:12:39] He shouted more than once as we gasped and suffered.
[00:12:42] Coach Johnson showed no mercy when he evaluated the team.
[00:12:45] He concluded that we lacked discipline and motivation.
[00:12:49] He made our two weeks in August a crucible designed to test our toughness and our commitment to the team.
[00:12:55] At one point, a wide receiver went down with a phantom injury.
[00:12:58] After the team, Dr. examined the wide out and found nothing wrong with him.
[00:13:03] Coach Johnson demoted him on the spot.
[00:13:05] So Coach Johnson came in and dropped the heat man.
[00:13:08] I still remember.
[00:13:11] You know, back then at the Naval Academy, we had what was called instant messenger.
[00:13:15] And so you could leave in a way message.
[00:13:17] You know, on your instant messenger, and we did our fourth quarter drills.
[00:13:20] I remember our starting defensive end, Pete Butte Miller.
[00:13:23] He left in his a way message.
[00:13:25] He said, today I met death.
[00:13:27] And death kicked my, you know what?
[00:13:29] It was brutal.
[00:13:30] And they screamed at us repeatedly.
[00:13:32] No wonder you went on 11.
[00:13:34] We were a naval academy football team.
[00:13:36] And the previous coach had let discipline just run a ride.
[00:13:39] You know, both on the field in practice, in the weight room, in films.
[00:13:43] You could be hurt all weeks till starting a game.
[00:13:46] The things that are essential for a military academy team to win.
[00:13:50] I mean, you've got to be in better shape than the other team.
[00:13:52] And you've got to commit less mental errors.
[00:13:54] Because physically you're never really going to match up.
[00:13:56] Right.
[00:13:57] And we were making that error.
[00:13:58] And from all that chaos,
[00:14:01] one of the real amazing things I learned from those coaches,
[00:14:06] who that staff is basically still there today.
[00:14:09] Coach Nehematolo Lolo was the offensive coordinator.
[00:14:11] When Johnson left, he's now the head coach.
[00:14:14] But they taught me.
[00:14:16] And as leaders to expect excellence, every single drill,
[00:14:20] every film session, every weight room session, every conditioning.
[00:14:24] There was a standard.
[00:14:25] You either meet the standard or you don't meet the standard.
[00:14:28] And if you don't meet the standard, there are consequences.
[00:14:30] There's remediation.
[00:14:32] There's ways that you have to fix it because this is the only thing
[00:14:35] that's good enough.
[00:14:36] If we're going to move forward, you either get better.
[00:14:38] You get worse every day, getting worse is unacceptable.
[00:14:41] And when you take that mentality as an officer to what you're doing in the field
[00:14:46] to train 160 Marines to go to combat,
[00:14:50] all of a sudden, Nehematolo is a lot more serious than when in losing football games.
[00:14:54] But that holds true in business and holds true in anything.
[00:14:57] There is a standard.
[00:14:58] And if you, if you accept below that standard just once,
[00:15:02] that sets a precedent.
[00:15:04] That could lead to what happened before he got there.
[00:15:07] And I've gone back to the Naval Academy repeatedly.
[00:15:10] And I've talked to the team.
[00:15:11] I actually talked to the junior class every single year.
[00:15:14] And one of the things I always tell those coaches,
[00:15:17] gentlemen, you guys are putting out a better product
[00:15:21] as officers because you're here.
[00:15:24] Your job is to put forth the great football team,
[00:15:26] but I promise you.
[00:15:27] And the staff at the Naval Academy, the officers, they see it too.
[00:15:30] They are making better leaders because of what they're doing on the football field.
[00:15:33] Before they got there, that wasn't happening.
[00:15:36] What was happening on the football field is making us worse officers.
[00:15:39] And so I still hold true.
[00:15:41] He now coaches Paul Johnson coaches the Georgia Techno.
[00:15:44] He brought me down to speak to the team a couple of years ago.
[00:15:47] And we had some great conversations.
[00:15:48] But I mean, he's still, he's still that same guy.
[00:15:51] Still thinks he can beat me up.
[00:15:52] And I get it.
[00:15:55] And I'm not asking you in front of your teammates.
[00:15:58] You always say you can whip me.
[00:16:00] You have to realize now there's not a chance.
[00:16:02] He is this, no boy, I'm telling you, I still think I could whip you.
[00:16:05] And he'll throw this off for you.
[00:16:06] You know, right across.
[00:16:07] It's Jerry Attic at this point.
[00:16:09] You can barely even get his arm up.
[00:16:10] But he still throws it like he can beat me.
[00:16:12] He's game.
[00:16:13] He's game.
[00:16:14] He's game.
[00:16:14] The heart's there.
[00:16:15] The body got it though.
[00:16:17] So you actually, you actually talked about this in the book.
[00:16:20] So here we go.
[00:16:21] All that effort pain and misery made me a more disciplined human being.
[00:16:25] It prepared me for the trials ahead as a marine infantry officer.
[00:16:30] In fact, many of the lessons I learned helped me better prepare my
[00:16:34] platoon and later my company for combat and I rack.
[00:16:37] In football and in a rifle company, there is no substitute for discipline, hard work and commitment.
[00:16:44] If any of these elements are lacking, the team is going to lose.
[00:16:49] The company will get shot to pieces in combat and men will die.
[00:16:54] I learned there is no margin for error in both.
[00:16:58] And the only way to be perfect is to demand perfection and never broke excuses.
[00:17:05] There you go.
[00:17:06] That's life.
[00:17:07] I mean, you know, at that point, especially then, that is that is your world.
[00:17:11] That is your life.
[00:17:12] The military is so unique in that other jobs you can leave it.
[00:17:17] 5 PM 6 PM whenever you go home from work.
[00:17:19] Hey, I am no longer an accountant.
[00:17:21] Now I'm Jimmy.
[00:17:23] Now I'm Sarah.
[00:17:24] Now I'm I'm home ever, right?
[00:17:26] But in the military, if you're bad at your job, you're a bad person.
[00:17:30] And that's kind of how you're looking for.
[00:17:32] If you're not good, if you're not good, if you're not good, if you're not good, if this isn't everything you eat, sleep and breathe, you're weak.
[00:17:42] I mean, that's just the kind of environment we have.
[00:17:45] And I always tell this story when people look at me like I'm crazy.
[00:17:49] I tell them this story.
[00:17:52] Had a Marine named James Brown, no affiliation with the famous person.
[00:17:56] And James is a great Marine.
[00:17:58] He was a tough, tough kid.
[00:18:00] And he was in a machine gun post.
[00:18:04] Watching over a main avenue of approach.
[00:18:07] And his job was to make sure that stayed clear.
[00:18:09] The best topics keep a clear of IEDs.
[00:18:11] Make sure nobody plants an IED there.
[00:18:13] And everything was bulletproof around him, except for the one slit where the 240 Gulf went through.
[00:18:18] And it was 125 degrees.
[00:18:22] And people always ask, why are the Marines so extreme?
[00:18:25] When you make statements like that discipline, commitment, they're everything.
[00:18:29] Everything has to be perfect.
[00:18:30] I tell them this story.
[00:18:31] It got hot.
[00:18:33] James leaned against the rifle to get a little breeze through that slit.
[00:18:36] And that moment got shot and head by the sniper and died.
[00:18:39] And it was an amazing shot.
[00:18:41] When we went up there and looked at where I mean, in Iraq, they had some very, very good snipers as we know.
[00:18:47] But not one split moment.
[00:18:50] I lost that Marine.
[00:18:52] And everything we do, everything you do to perfection, that's why.
[00:18:56] You demand perfection and everything you do because you are so afraid that they're not going to come home alive.
[00:19:03] And I had to tell my Marines this one time, they were lacking in some of their standards.
[00:19:06] It's in Iraq.
[00:19:07] I made them stand uniform inspections.
[00:19:10] Imagine they're attitude as I made them stand three uniform inspections a day.
[00:19:13] And they were so mad, but in leadership, you can't do something like that without telling them the why.
[00:19:18] They're not going to buy it.
[00:19:19] They're just going to hate you now.
[00:19:20] And I told my solicit guys, we're not strapping down our ammo and hum these well enough.
[00:19:25] We're not cleaning our weapons right after mission like we should be.
[00:19:28] Not wearing our uniforms, we get back to camp because you think you're so cool because you've been to a bunch of fire fights.
[00:19:32] If we don't do the little things right, it's going to affect the big things.
[00:19:36] And ultimately what's going to happen is we are going to die.
[00:19:39] We're going to lose.
[00:19:40] Or the people who are here to protect are going to die.
[00:19:42] Therefore, I'm going to do these uniform inspections until all of these things are fixed permanently.
[00:19:48] And I am totally fine with you hating me right now.
[00:19:53] If that means I will deliver you home alive with the mission accomplished.
[00:19:57] I'd rather you be alive and hate me than you guys love me because you think I'm super cool.
[00:20:02] But then have you guys die because of my poor leadership and my inability to keep you guys disciplined and keep you to the standard of perfection.
[00:20:10] And that is something it's hard for people who haven't been in that circumstance.
[00:20:14] It's hard for them to understand.
[00:20:16] It really is.
[00:20:17] But even in my current job running a nonprofit, I tell my staff every single veteran they speak to every conversation.
[00:20:24] Whether it's the ten time you talk to that vet and you're doing another practice interview.
[00:20:28] Our job is to help them find the American dream.
[00:20:32] To leave the military by their own choosing and now find not a job but a great career where they can thrive.
[00:20:38] And if we take any conversation with them for granted, they may no longer want to take our advice.
[00:20:43] They may go out alone, they may not choose the right thing and we failed them.
[00:20:48] People give us money not to fail them.
[00:20:51] You're paid with other people's money that they gave us to help these vet get jobs.
[00:20:56] Period.
[00:20:57] If we're not doing that, then you don't work here anymore.
[00:21:00] I don't work here anymore.
[00:21:02] Period.
[00:21:03] We will find somebody else to do it because that's our job.
[00:21:05] And so you've got to set that standard.
[00:21:08] But if you don't tell them the why behind it, they'll never understand that.
[00:21:11] It doesn't mean that we have this culture.
[00:21:13] It's not like my platoon had this culture where we were all so hardcore and there was no compassion.
[00:21:18] There was no person out there was no smiles as you could attest to.
[00:21:21] You can have an environment of discipline, hard work and commitment.
[00:21:27] But still have a lot of love, compassion in good times.
[00:21:32] They have fun.
[00:21:33] You know what's great fun when you go and you train and you're awesome.
[00:21:38] You know there's a lot of fun.
[00:21:40] The New England Patriots.
[00:21:42] They have a hell of a lot of fun.
[00:21:44] And you want about discipline and commitment and hard work.
[00:21:47] That's why they're on the top.
[00:21:48] And they have a lot of fun smile at the end of every season.
[00:21:50] Everybody hates on them and they're raising their trophies.
[00:21:53] So you got this section in the book that talks about what you're talking about right now.
[00:21:59] The leadership factory, right?
[00:22:01] So here I'm going to go to the book.
[00:22:03] All the academic classes in the world will never teach anyone to be a leader.
[00:22:07] The Academy recognized that long ago and while we had to take courses on the subject, we learned by doing.
[00:22:14] The Academy of Structure to provide leadership opportunities in a wide variety of places and levels from the very first day you start as plebes.
[00:22:23] And this is emphasizing what you just said and discipline is something that I talk about all the time.
[00:22:35] And you know what's great as you know as I was talking to you on the way over here.
[00:22:39] You know I do all these I read these leadership or not leadership books.
[00:22:43] They're not books about leadership.
[00:22:44] They're about combat, right?
[00:22:45] But combat is about leadership.
[00:22:47] So all these books, all of them.
[00:22:49] Every single one of them, whether it's an ancient Roman military leader or a marine in Vietnam or an army soldier in World War II,
[00:22:59] they all, there is one common thing that's discipline discipline discipline.
[00:23:03] It's always there.
[00:23:05] Back to the book, discipline forms the cornerstone of any military team.
[00:23:09] And of course, punishment serves as one of the means to maintain discipline.
[00:23:15] During my junior year, I learned not to be afraid to meet out punishment.
[00:23:20] At the same time doing so requires a balance of appropriateness and understanding.
[00:23:27] So that's the why you just talked about right there.
[00:23:29] And this again goes to something that I talk about a lot which is which is the dichotomy of leadership,
[00:23:35] which is in leadership.
[00:23:37] There's there's opposing forces that are pulling you into different directions.
[00:23:40] And both of them are right.
[00:23:41] They're both right.
[00:23:42] It's right to be hard on your guys and maintain strict discipline.
[00:23:45] And it's right to love your guys and take care of them.
[00:23:47] You have to balance those two.
[00:23:48] And that's what you're talking about right there.
[00:23:50] That's what you were talking about when you were talking about.
[00:23:52] They need to understand why they're being punished, punished.
[00:23:55] Back to the book.
[00:23:57] Bad officers try to be buddies with their Marines.
[00:24:01] There's a fine line between getting to know the men under your command and bonding with them as friends.
[00:24:08] It is all too easy to make that mistake.
[00:24:11] At the same time, here's the balance.
[00:24:13] At the same time, if a young second lieutenant doesn't make an effort to know his men, his aloofness becomes a drag and will hinder his ability to command in several ways.
[00:24:23] First, you won't understand the strengths and weaknesses of his squads.
[00:24:26] More important, he won't have the respect or the connection needed to motivate and lead in the worst of circumstances.
[00:24:34] Men will follow other men into the worst possible circumstances if they respect and believe in their leadership.
[00:24:40] Like all other aspects of command, it is a delicate balance.
[00:24:45] You're just everything you just said, you say it in the book.
[00:24:50] And that's why you're talking about the leadership factory.
[00:24:54] But it's interesting.
[00:24:55] This is stuff that I'm sure they touched on it in the classes.
[00:24:58] But that's the stuff that you learn.
[00:24:59] You learn it from senior and listed people.
[00:25:01] You learn it from other officers.
[00:25:02] You learn it yourself.
[00:25:03] You work for people and you go, man, this guy's aloof.
[00:25:05] This guy's not talking to us.
[00:25:06] So it's stuff that we learn ourselves too.
[00:25:08] I'm going to finish this section up.
[00:25:10] I concluded the proper balance here,
[00:25:12] depending on the officer's ability to listen and accept input.
[00:25:16] While still making it clear that he was the ultimate decision maker,
[00:25:19] that was the key.
[00:25:21] A second lieutenant couldn't be afraid to engage in frank and productive dialogue with his key leaders.
[00:25:27] A platoon becomes the reflection of its commander.
[00:25:34] He sets the example.
[00:25:36] And this is from what you just said.
[00:25:39] If his uniform is jacked up, his men won't care about their own.
[00:25:42] This leads to disciplinary issues and becomes a very slippery slope.
[00:25:46] The only way a second lieutenant can have the moral authority to set a high standard
[00:25:51] is to set a high standard for conditioning and appearance is to speed the example himself.
[00:25:58] Without conditioning, a platoon can not achieve its potential in the field.
[00:26:02] Aggressiveness suffers.
[00:26:06] Appearance breeds pride and reinforces discipline and a speed of core.
[00:26:12] So those, that's the leadership factor that you're talking about.
[00:26:16] And clearly, those things that you brought from the football field and from the academy,
[00:26:20] you applied them directly into your folks in combat.
[00:26:22] They helped and you know,
[00:26:24] the Marine Corps has a really unique circumstance where they have the basic school,
[00:26:28] every single officer goes there. And that's huge to set this huge standard.
[00:26:34] Then we go step further where when we go to infantry officer course,
[00:26:38] that course was 13 weeks long.
[00:26:40] One of the very hardest if not the hardest in the Marine Corps, mentally physically everything.
[00:26:45] You don't know anything that's coming, everything's a surprise.
[00:26:48] But I felt that my instructors during our course were phenomenal.
[00:26:52] And they were getting all the real time intelligence from the battlefield.
[00:26:56] All the training was realistic.
[00:26:58] But in terms of how you relate to your Marines from your junior and listed to your middle rank,
[00:27:05] to your senior and listed, how you relate to the senior and listed from the battalion,
[00:27:10] who worked directly for the battalion staff, how you manage those relationships
[00:27:14] to maximize the effectiveness of your platoon to make sure you can get exactly what they need.
[00:27:20] They did such a good job of that.
[00:27:22] And then you take a one step further when I reported a third battalion, second Marines, I'd be remiss
[00:27:26] if I didn't give credit to a guy by the name of Gabe Diana, who is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps.
[00:27:31] Now I believe.
[00:27:32] But he taught me he was a true student of leadership and military history.
[00:27:37] He would tell me all the time, his craft is his hobby.
[00:27:40] There's nothing else he cared about.
[00:27:42] It's what he was. He loved being a Marine Love Being an Officer.
[00:27:45] And he taught me a lot about decentralized leadership.
[00:27:50] How to not micromanage.
[00:27:52] How to empower your junior leaders that they start to think like you and you could achieve
[00:27:57] tempo on the battlefield.
[00:27:59] And you could immediately see examples of Marines.
[00:28:02] I call it, and I see it all the time in the business world.
[00:28:06] I call it JV Leadership, where I'm a great leader if my people love me.
[00:28:12] And they're the same leaders that will tell their people our guys.
[00:28:15] Today we've got to stay 30 minutes longer because headquarters said so.
[00:28:19] Look, I disagree with it.
[00:28:20] I think it's ridiculous, but we have to do it.
[00:28:23] Let's just sit here together.
[00:28:24] Now none of their people are actually going to work motivated.
[00:28:27] There's going to be no discipline.
[00:28:28] There's going to be no standard that they're trying to achieve because of that horrible
[00:28:31] leadership.
[00:28:32] Yeah, they're angry at headquarters.
[00:28:34] Absolutely.
[00:28:35] They're they're bat mad at the chain of command.
[00:28:37] Exactly.
[00:28:38] That's JV Leadership.
[00:28:39] And I'm constantly trying to talk to people about that.
[00:28:42] A JV Leadership, the first thing that is you think you have to be loved to be an effective leader.
[00:28:47] If you are an effective leader over the long term, you will be loved, but there's going to be an intermittent part where they can't stand you.
[00:28:53] They don't understand things all the time.
[00:28:55] They're going to be mad at you, because it's because they're emotional.
[00:28:57] But over a long term, they're going to understand that what you did was best.
[00:29:00] The other, the second major part to JV Leadership is thinking, hey, I'm in charge.
[00:29:05] Therefore, I come up with all the great ideas.
[00:29:08] And I'm going to make every single decision without your input. And I'm going to really try hard to make sure that you know what I am in charge.
[00:29:14] That's ridiculous.
[00:29:16] It is not your job to come up with all the great ideas.
[00:29:18] Some of the best ideas I receive were from 19 year olds.
[00:29:22] You know, 21 year olds who had already been to Iraq once had a grace.
[00:29:26] I got a great idea.
[00:29:27] Well, I want to hear all about.
[00:29:29] It's, it's, it's our job as leaders to decide which are the best ideas to invest energy time and resources in.
[00:29:36] And that's not just, I get all this stuff all the time when I talk to different groups and companies.
[00:29:40] Well, military leadership is different than corporate leadership. Why?
[00:29:45] What am I saying here that doesn't apply?
[00:29:47] Well, it's too extreme.
[00:29:50] It is not.
[00:29:51] You're taking us to literal with, with our warrior mentalities here.
[00:29:56] You know, that, that you do not need to be an insecure, the best leaders are not insecure.
[00:30:01] They're secure. They know that they're there and ultimately going to make the final decision.
[00:30:05] But it empowers your people and you could achieve tempo when your decentralized enough that they feel good about coming up with ideas.
[00:30:13] Sending them up to you to get back up for it and get resources behind it.
[00:30:18] But also knowing that they could make the appropriate decision to their level because they know what your final intent is.
[00:30:23] Here's the outcome I want to achieve.
[00:30:25] You get us there.
[00:30:26] You're the expert at it. That's why I hired you.
[00:30:29] I didn't tell my machine gun or to work their T and E system and how to sight in their machine guns, right?
[00:30:34] I just told them what I wanted them to hit. They're better than that.
[00:30:36] It may take the time to spend it with my Marines and their different functions and aspects and talk to them about how they're there, the expert and compliment them like that.
[00:30:46] It made them feel great.
[00:30:48] It does wonders for a leader to go to their level, see what they do every day and see that expert work.
[00:30:55] Consider an expect you to be an expert in all of that. They know that.
[00:30:59] Your job is different. Your responsibilities are different. You need to have greater perspective.
[00:31:04] But when you go to their level and respect what they do and show them respect for what they do and how they do it,
[00:31:12] man, it's a powerful thing that that could make a group of people so much better collectively than they ever would have been individually.
[00:31:20] And when it happens, right? When it finally when you finally get there and can achieve that, it is awesome.
[00:31:26] It's the most rewarding experience you could ever have.
[00:31:28] And it's hard for people to understand because most people they well, the most rewarding experience you have is killing people.
[00:31:33] No, it's so much different than that.
[00:31:37] So much different. There's so much more to it than that.
[00:31:40] Yeah, yeah, it's interesting too.
[00:31:43] That by the way, what you're saying right now is basically the entire book that my buddy, Dave Babich,
[00:31:49] there's a chapter in there called the Centralized Commandery, everything you're saying.
[00:31:54] But that's why you've come up in a completely different, you know, in the Marine Corps, I was in the Navy.
[00:32:00] And yet, you know, you and I have both, I can tell right now,
[00:32:04] basically completely aligned leadership principles.
[00:32:07] Isn't it interesting though that some guys don't get it?
[00:32:12] They don't get it and you could explain it to them and you'd say, listen man, hey,
[00:32:17] you don't need to make every decision.
[00:32:19] And in fact, when you get out and firefly, you won't be able to make every decision.
[00:32:22] You're going to have to let your leaders lead and you're going to let the after let.
[00:32:25] And they would listen to you and you could see it going right through their head.
[00:32:29] It's wild. You wonder what psychologically is going on in there that makes you want to rebel.
[00:32:35] In a lot of times, it's hey, they got a bad review from this officer.
[00:32:39] So this is their way of saying, you know, hey, you know, go fly a kite.
[00:32:43] You know, this is their way of rebelling. I noticed that with some officers.
[00:32:48] And in some of the, and I had, I had to firely tent it during my second deployment.
[00:32:52] And, and he had this problem, you know, he kept feeling he had to be best friends with this marines.
[00:32:56] He spent way too much time with him talking about a lot of personal stuff.
[00:32:59] They'd be out of control and nobody would listen to him.
[00:33:02] I mean, it was almost straight meaning.
[00:33:04] And then when I had to fire him and here's the thing is, and I tell him, look, you're a really good person.
[00:33:10] And you are most likely going to be very successful in whatever you choose to do.
[00:33:15] So please, please remember that. It's hard to hear that now.
[00:33:20] This is a very unique job.
[00:33:23] And we are in a very dangerous scenario. We were already in Iraq.
[00:33:26] And we were in a dangerous area at the time.
[00:33:28] And things were about to go south.
[00:33:30] And I had to remove this kid now before things got worse.
[00:33:34] And it was hard for me to understand that you can be a phenomenal human being.
[00:33:38] A great person, but just not meant to lead, especially in those circumstances.
[00:33:44] But it's some people.
[00:33:47] And I think, obviously, if they have so many years growing up in a household where it was so different from what they're being taught.
[00:33:55] That I think sometimes is the root for them to push back against this type of leadership.
[00:33:59] No, you know, I've been taught differently for years and years.
[00:34:02] It's kind of like, wow, did you just block it all out for the year and a half you've been in school before you got here?
[00:34:08] With guys with all this combat experience, I'm not to mention hundreds of years of history.
[00:34:13] Yes.
[00:34:14] Of combat experience, same look, this is the best way to do it.
[00:34:18] Yes. And same, no, I'm going to do a different thing.
[00:34:21] I mean, the military is a business.
[00:34:23] It is a business. It's run like a business.
[00:34:25] And the leadership there, it's about maximizing the potential of all the human beings that you have on your team.
[00:34:33] And how do you do that?
[00:34:34] Yes, it involves tactics and what we do is different.
[00:34:38] But the personal, the small unit down to the large unit leadership is all the same.
[00:34:42] It's all the same.
[00:34:43] It's all the same.
[00:34:45] And you go around and you talk to different executives who are having trouble well, you know,
[00:34:49] you know, it's the millennials and what they do and what they do and this do.
[00:34:53] And we were talking about it right here.
[00:34:55] People, the experts always want to blame some kind of process.
[00:34:58] I think your process and your information flow is wrong and the way that you have your workflow set up in the office space,
[00:35:04] that's causing this issue in communication.
[00:35:07] No, it's not. You're saying that because you are afraid to have the heart conversations with the leaders who are failing.
[00:35:14] Oh, which by the way, you're one of the leaders. Yes.
[00:35:17] Yes. So when you're failing as a business and you've got these issues, yeah, it's pretty, you're going to be one of the problems.
[00:35:23] And you might need help square in that away. And that's okay.
[00:35:26] That's okay.
[00:35:26] Well, you know, another thing I noticed in business world is a lot of people in the business world.
[00:35:31] They have no leadership training.
[00:35:33] They've figured it out. They've been lucky and successful and they've gotten by with good people.
[00:35:37] And then they get to a certain point where all of the sudden they're going to wait a second. I can't handle this anymore.
[00:35:41] You know, if you grow from six people that you know pretty well that you trust and all of a sudden you got to staff of a hundred people.
[00:35:47] If you don't start learning how to lead, you're going to have significant problems and it's going to blow up.
[00:35:52] And that happens from a hundred people to 300 people and then from 300 people to a thousand people.
[00:35:56] It will happen every time and you got to train those leaders throughout the chain of command that all have the same understanding of the fundamental principle.
[00:36:02] The fundamental principles of combat leadership, which is leadership.
[00:36:06] I have the thought combat in there because that was my little job.
[00:36:10] You know, it's funny you bring that up. There's a great example.
[00:36:13] Dan Quinn is the current head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. He was a defensive coordinator at Seattle.
[00:36:18] Hires the head coach in Atlanta.
[00:36:20] And through his, he's a very good friend of Jake Laser who's obviously very involved in mixed martial arts and does a lot of the fox broadcasts.
[00:36:27] And I've worked with him and gotten close with him.
[00:36:29] And so Jay introduced me to Dan. Dan was looking to make the team tougher.
[00:36:33] And here's a guy who has achieved the highest level of leadership in coaching.
[00:36:37] Just like you talked about. He was a great coordinator.
[00:36:40] Now he's a head coach. And he had the humility to seek out experts from all I mean, he went to different sports.
[00:36:47] Talk to their head coaches. He went to the military.
[00:36:50] He went all over with humility to ask and get advice and glean experience from other people's time and leadership.
[00:36:58] To include, I couldn't believe it. But here I am having breakfast with the man.
[00:37:02] Here I'm in his office or I'm in there and you know, their little cafeteria there.
[00:37:06] We're just talking leadership. And he's talking about some of his individual guys.
[00:37:09] And he's actually listening to my opinion.
[00:37:11] Wanted to hear what I went through. My opinion on this guy or that guy is he brought me in to do some martial arts drills to make the team tougher.
[00:37:18] But I gained so much respect for that. Here's a man who's achieved the highest level.
[00:37:22] He knows he's in charge. He's not out to prove anything.
[00:37:25] Guys know he's in charge. And when they don't meet the standard, there's a consequence.
[00:37:30] But at the same time, he shows them the same kind of humility as he seeks out advice to get better everyday because he wants them.
[00:37:38] Hey, Julio Jones, I know you think you're the best wide receiver in football.
[00:37:42] But there's ways you can get better. And you need to be humble enough to find them.
[00:37:46] And guess what? Julio goes first in every drill. The dudes that I mean, I've watched him, works as hard as any human being I've seen in the football field.
[00:37:54] He's always looking to get better. Matt Ryan the same. And look at the position the teams in now.
[00:37:58] But he is continually done that. He turned to Navy SEALs last summer brought seals in to work with his team, to work with him on leadership, on accountability.
[00:38:07] And all this combat, but leadership.
[00:38:10] And bring it into that locker room and create this cohesive unit that has had a tremendous turnaround from the 2015 season to now 2016.
[00:38:19] Now let's see championship. Again, for you, reciting my book, which is what you do because we're going to chat with the nerds called Czecherega.
[00:38:27] And you know, my point is the number one, the number one characteristic that a leader has to have is humility.
[00:38:33] And if you don't have that, all those things that you just talked about, you won't do any of them. You won't ever get better.
[00:38:37] You won't listen to anybody else. You won't take any advice. You can't, that's, that's a horrible thing.
[00:38:44] Let me, let me, let me get us back on track to your life a little bit here.
[00:38:50] Why did you pick the Marine Corps?
[00:38:53] Because I couldn't swim.
[00:38:55] No, and all honesty, you know, I thought for a while that I wanted to be a team guy playing football and trying to be a seal.
[00:39:04] It's extremely competitive. You know who went into the teams and, I mean, physical specimens discipline there in Credwell.
[00:39:13] I was just going to be a team for four years, then go and do all these different screeners.
[00:39:17] And for me, not having spent four years in the pool was costly because when it came time for me to do this screener to go do many buds,
[00:39:24] it was basically like a mini hell week for four straight days of the academy was tough.
[00:39:28] And we broke the ice and the chest peak, all of that, you know, I trained for it for two weeks.
[00:39:33] Right. I still had a shoulder problem and a hamstring prompt in the season.
[00:39:37] I mean, it was just not going to work. I was not going to compete with these guys for it.
[00:39:40] But ultimately what attracted me was the Warner racket started.
[00:39:45] A lot of my buddies were in the march-up that I had played with that were graduated before me.
[00:39:52] I had talked to some folks that were in special operations and seals and they talked about it and it's a smaller team.
[00:39:59] So it's a little bit different whereas in the Marine Corps, the leadership, you know, a very young age you're going to have 40 some Marines.
[00:40:08] You'll go on to be a company commander at this level. You're going to get a legitimate opportunity to command large scale units.
[00:40:14] And that was really appealing to me.
[00:40:16] It's awesome.
[00:40:17] And I thought that that was probably the best opportunity for me because if I was going to try to then be a team guy,
[00:40:22] I was going to have to go into the Navy as a surface warfare officer.
[00:40:25] And then after two years, so then after two years, so they're all trying to get to buds.
[00:40:30] And there's no guarantees.
[00:40:32] Being a seal is extraordinarily competitive and the physical requirements as officers to get there are really, really high.
[00:40:39] And so for me, the Marine Corps had an amazing appeal.
[00:40:44] Did you know about the Marine Corps when you went to the Naval Academy though?
[00:40:47] I wasn't, I did, so I went to leave some because they run.
[00:40:50] They run it and I'll tell you a lot of the people at the Naval Academy when I was there hated the Marines.
[00:40:56] Were you so many of them went there with a chip on their shoulder? You know, this is the Naval Academy.
[00:41:02] There's no Marine Corps stuff in it. And we get our opportunity. We're really going to be jerks.
[00:41:06] And we had this great Lieutenant Colonel when I was a senior.
[00:41:10] And we had all been selected to be Marines who told us, look, this is not the real Marine Corps.
[00:41:15] They're not representing us well. We've got a bad crop here right now that are trying to prove a point.
[00:41:21] When you get to the basic school, you're going to find that it's massively different.
[00:41:26] And I loved everything about that. I loved the diversity of my Marines.
[00:41:31] I mean, we talk about race.
[00:41:33] Race is a big deal. Racism in our country. It's a big topic.
[00:41:37] I mean, there's constantly battles on all the Hollywood news sites going on about race.
[00:41:42] Didn't exist. What else in the Marine Corps?
[00:41:46] Men from all over the world.
[00:41:48] They're green marines. It didn't matter. It did not matter.
[00:41:53] We didn't care. Everybody, hey, this is so much of the salt we didn't care.
[00:41:57] We had a missionary day. We trained together. We bled together.
[00:42:00] And it was phenomenal. None of that stuff existed because we won together.
[00:42:04] We suffered together. And we looked beyond all of it.
[00:42:08] It just doesn't matter in the military. And it's so frustrating to see it matters so much here in the regular world.
[00:42:16] Where people have all kinds of preconceived things.
[00:42:19] And in some people are out there acting like they're fighting on for the better of race relations in our country.
[00:42:26] And they're making it worse because they've got their own personal agenda as they do it.
[00:42:30] It's just really frustrating.
[00:42:32] Yeah. Well, I definitely in the military, like you said, everyone's wearing the same uniform.
[00:42:38] And I'm sure in the 50s and 60s and even into the 70s, it was a big deal.
[00:42:43] They stamped it out because it doesn't matter.
[00:42:46] It's no factor. One way or the other. It's no factor. It's pretty awesome.
[00:42:52] Yeah. Went to the basic school.
[00:42:56] You got stalled in the basic school for a little bit of time.
[00:43:00] And you know, going through some legal stuff.
[00:43:04] And while you're stalled at the basic school, your friends start going on deployment.
[00:43:10] And all of a sudden you got your classmates, your friends, your brothers are getting killed.
[00:43:21] And you know, that feeling of being on sidelines.
[00:43:27] I think it's really hard to explain to people and you do a good job in the book that I'll highlight a couple times.
[00:43:33] I heard this quote one time. I'm not, I'm going to throw it out there as best I can.
[00:43:40] But for women, like they have, an intrinsic biological desire to have children, not all women.
[00:43:51] But a lot of women, let's say.
[00:43:54] And a lot of men have an intrinsic desire to go to war.
[00:44:00] I don't know why that is. I know I had it since I can remember having human emotions.
[00:44:06] I wanted to go to war. You know, I mean, when you're a kid, the first thing you do when you pick up a stick is you shape it into a gun and start pointing it out your friends and trying to kill them.
[00:44:17] Right. So here you were on the sidelines sitting back and, and your friends are starting to get killed.
[00:44:27] Wow. What did that do to your psychology? It was, it was dark.
[00:44:32] It was psychologically that was the most challenging time period of my life.
[00:44:36] You've got someone challenging your character and your honor trying to say that you were something that you weren't.
[00:44:43] And I wouldn't allow it. There were there were easier ways to speed up the process and I refused.
[00:44:48] No way. I know what happened.
[00:44:51] And during that delay, it was a very, very dark period. And it was difficult.
[00:44:58] But you have to, you have to slow life down sometimes, gain perspective and realize, hey, look, this is going to take some time.
[00:45:07] Eventually, I am going to get there. But what really turned into when the opportunity finally came to progress, using my time wisely,
[00:45:17] the war wasn't going to go away tomorrow. You know, sometimes you get this feeling your mind like, oh, man, my friends are out there dying.
[00:45:23] They're leading. I need to be with them right now, realizing, whoa, it's not going to be gone tomorrow.
[00:45:29] So don't be so anxious. Don't waste the time you have now to get better.
[00:45:34] What can I do? I'm not going to let this stupid instance hold me back from improving from when I eventually do go on to lead Marines.
[00:45:42] And so I found a way to contribute value. I found a way to get better. It didn't happen right away.
[00:45:49] You know, there was a couple of weeks where it was dark, where I was angry.
[00:45:53] But I snapped out of it because there's times in life where life and your psychology, they want, you want to be the victim, right?
[00:46:02] You want to feel like you've been wrong. And the problem is, a lot of times when you go into that mode and you start playing the victim,
[00:46:10] you never crawl out of it. You get stuck in that world of the victim.
[00:46:15] You get stuck in this world that you think is all bad luck and everything's always going against you.
[00:46:20] And you stop driving, you know, your own life.
[00:46:24] You got to crawl out of that when you're, when your mind is telling you to play the victim and to feel bad for yourself,
[00:46:30] nothing positive comes from that.
[00:46:32] Something did something specific snap you out of that mindset that your mom tell you something or you're, he was right.
[00:46:40] They talk about that.
[00:46:41] Oh, that's right. That's right.
[00:46:42] You should.
[00:46:43] I mean, my, my, my mom is the sweetest woman in the world, too. But there are specific time in my life where she was extremely hard on me.
[00:46:51] Don't want to give mom a stand.
[00:46:53] They were at the right times.
[00:46:54] You, you, you'd meet her now.
[00:46:56] You know, I'm going to finish this.
[00:46:57] So you push over.
[00:46:58] But there are times where she, you, hey, you're going to fight this.
[00:47:02] Understand me.
[00:47:03] You're going to fight this.
[00:47:05] You're right.
[00:47:06] That's it.
[00:47:08] And you move forward.
[00:47:09] And you, oh, just like we all, oh, the, the friends that you lose.
[00:47:15] There are many different ways that we could remember them, that we could memorialize them.
[00:47:21] Some people choose the wrong way in my opinion.
[00:47:24] Substance alcohol, depression, you know, they choose more of a victim mind that way of remembering them.
[00:47:33] Others choose, hey, they're no longer here.
[00:47:37] I can't bring them back.
[00:47:39] What would they want me to be doing?
[00:47:42] What would make them proud?
[00:47:44] I take their life for granted if I use them as an excuse to be idle and fail.
[00:47:50] Right.
[00:47:52] But I am memorialized.
[00:47:54] And if I remember them speak their name and talk about them as I move on and I succeed.
[00:48:00] And I still think about that.
[00:48:02] I think about Ronnie Winchester who I played football with, who died now.
[00:48:05] Kaya, my rack.
[00:48:06] I think about Brett Harmon, who was killed at an NC State football tailgator before he could even lead his platoon to battle.
[00:48:13] And those incidents happen again while you're on the sidelines.
[00:48:16] And the other thing you start doing right now at that time period is, what is that saying?
[00:48:21] When the student is ready and instructor will appear, well, you ended up at the Marine Corps, the martial arts center for excellence and you started training.
[00:48:29] I ran into a Colonel named Joshusko, who is just this phenomenal guy, all about character.
[00:48:36] I mean, in his 60s, he's cut out run all of us.
[00:48:39] I mean, the epitome of discipline, discipline, discipline.
[00:48:43] And he brought me and I started working there and I got further introduced into martial arts.
[00:48:49] And I loved it.
[00:48:51] I found, hey, this is what I should be doing in my free time.
[00:48:55] I should be in heavy bags.
[00:48:57] I should be training.
[00:48:58] I should be watching tape.
[00:48:59] I need to be with, if I'm not reading military history and learning about my enemy, I'm doing this stuff.
[00:49:05] This, this is the type of stuff that's going to keep my mind sharp.
[00:49:07] And then I got intrigued.
[00:49:08] I wanted it.
[00:49:09] Okay.
[00:49:10] I'm going to lead Marines in combat.
[00:49:12] And a lot of these books that they were making is read on killing.
[00:49:16] And some of these books that that might paint your little off on the psychology of battle.
[00:49:20] A degree.
[00:49:21] I mean, just brutal guy.
[00:49:23] You're going to pee yourself before you get shot at.
[00:49:25] Actually, negative.
[00:49:26] I'm not going to pee myself.
[00:49:27] Yeah, I'm going to pee myself.
[00:49:28] Yeah.
[00:49:28] So I wondered, all right.
[00:49:32] Well, what can get me ready for that anxiety?
[00:49:34] I'm going to sign up for a fight.
[00:49:35] I had this master gunnery sergeant who was a really good kickboxer who worked at this martial arts center of exercise.
[00:49:40] So name, masterman, master guns.
[00:49:42] Will you train me for a fight?
[00:49:43] Can you get me like one of these martial arts fights on town?
[00:49:47] Yes, sir.
[00:49:48] I can get you one.
[00:49:49] You're going to show up.
[00:49:50] Yeah, of course.
[00:49:51] I'm going to show up.
[00:49:52] I don't know.
[00:49:53] Sir, I get a lot of you officers that don't.
[00:49:56] So anyways, I convinced him to train me every morning at five in the morning.
[00:49:59] We're training.
[00:50:00] It's six weeks.
[00:50:01] It's fine.
[00:50:01] I don't know much, right?
[00:50:03] I've got a black belt in the Marine Corps martial arts program.
[00:50:07] All right.
[00:50:08] That's an arm bar from the guard and arm bar from the mount.
[00:50:11] A sweet and how to escape the mount.
[00:50:14] I've never shrimped before.
[00:50:16] All right.
[00:50:17] I don't know what butterfly guard is.
[00:50:19] I have no clue what half guard is.
[00:50:21] All right.
[00:50:22] I've got a jab.
[00:50:23] I was a boss and I'll let you ready for your first MMA.
[00:50:25] And I'll let belt.
[00:50:26] You said.
[00:50:27] Huh?
[00:50:28] That was a black belt.
[00:50:29] I've got a jab across the leg.
[00:50:30] Understand.
[00:50:31] All right.
[00:50:32] So I get it.
[00:50:33] It's my first arms or fight.
[00:50:35] We weigh in.
[00:50:36] And the guy's older than me.
[00:50:37] He's got the same haircut as Chuck LaDell.
[00:50:39] And he's pretty ripped.
[00:50:40] And so you weigh in the same day as the fight.
[00:50:42] So we all leave now time to eat and then you come back.
[00:50:45] And so I come back and I'm warm up and he isn't showing up yet.
[00:50:48] Not only a little sheet that they hung off a bar in between us.
[00:50:52] And our fight's come up in two fights.
[00:50:54] And this guy may not show up.
[00:50:55] So this is the perfect scenario for me.
[00:50:57] He doesn't show.
[00:50:58] He was scared.
[00:50:59] I go out with all my Marine buddies in the crowd.
[00:51:02] I mean, there's 50 people at this fight.
[00:51:03] And 15 of them are there to watch me.
[00:51:05] And that makes it worse, right?
[00:51:07] And so he shows up.
[00:51:09] And he's warm and off.
[00:51:11] He's stretching.
[00:51:12] I'm like, look at through the sheet like, oh, maybe I need to do some of that to you.
[00:51:14] And I don't know.
[00:51:15] Anyways, we walked down his tarp.
[00:51:18] The fight starts.
[00:51:19] And this dude, he hits me with the worst spinning back fist.
[00:51:23] You've ever seen.
[00:51:24] I mean, slow motion off balance.
[00:51:26] My head's so big.
[00:51:27] Anything you throw at it.
[00:51:28] It hits any of my butt.
[00:51:29] He hits me with the spinning back fist.
[00:51:30] I'm starting to get embarrassed.
[00:51:31] He's coming at me aggressive.
[00:51:33] And now is that decision point.
[00:51:35] Okay.
[00:51:36] I can mentally break now and kind of cover up and get out of here.
[00:51:39] If this is a little uncomfortable for me.
[00:51:41] And at that point, I kind of snap.
[00:51:44] And I got mad.
[00:51:45] And so I go to try and take them down, which I am no less.
[00:51:49] He grabbed.
[00:51:50] He grabbed.
[00:51:51] He grabbed.
[00:51:52] He grabbed a big guillotine on me.
[00:51:54] Full on.
[00:51:55] Raps the legs around my waist.
[00:51:56] And he is hammered.
[00:51:57] Everything he's got here.
[00:51:59] He's tight.
[00:52:01] I'm making a few of the lights going on.
[00:52:03] I'm like, oh my goodness.
[00:52:04] No.
[00:52:05] And I could hear his corner man yelling to him.
[00:52:08] It's his wife.
[00:52:10] So now not only am I going to get tapped out in the first round.
[00:52:13] I'm going to get tapped out to a fake chocolate delby and corporat by his wife.
[00:52:18] Finish him, Jerry.
[00:52:19] I can do this.
[00:52:20] I can't let this happen.
[00:52:22] I find a way out of the choke.
[00:52:25] I kick him in the leg and realize, I kick hard.
[00:52:27] He didn't like that.
[00:52:28] And then I crack him in the forehead.
[00:52:29] And I split his head open.
[00:52:30] The doctor comes in.
[00:52:31] He doesn't know what month it is.
[00:52:32] And the fights over.
[00:52:34] And there was a bunch of Vietnam vets in the crowd.
[00:52:37] They're hammered.
[00:52:38] And as soon as I get out these dudes, these guys, these cross defellas throw their arms.
[00:52:42] I mean, spilling beer all over me.
[00:52:44] They're feeding me that, you know, they're putting the beer down my throat from their cup.
[00:52:47] They get dips in their mouth.
[00:52:48] I mean, this stuff is probably disgusting.
[00:52:50] But it takes so good.
[00:52:53] Ever that moment on, I was hooked.
[00:52:56] You know, this is what I should be doing.
[00:52:58] I had six weeks of a fight on my mind.
[00:53:00] If I can get used to that, how, how will I deal with the anxiety of, of unprepared for battle?
[00:53:07] Hey, we're on patrol, you know, we get contact.
[00:53:10] What's our media action?
[00:53:11] Well, we're going to have a major operation.
[00:53:13] Come to the six days.
[00:53:14] I have to be able to think clearly on the battlefield.
[00:53:17] Direct, lead, play chess.
[00:53:20] And so I thought, man, this fighting thing could be a key.
[00:53:24] It could be a help.
[00:53:25] And it certainly did not end up being that.
[00:53:28] But it ended up being my sanctuary through it all.
[00:53:32] It was, it was kind of what centered me.
[00:53:34] I brought tie pads to Iraq the first time.
[00:53:37] You know, I had one of my sergeants, the pretty good martial arts.
[00:53:40] We would train in between missions.
[00:53:41] I would train my guys.
[00:53:42] See, that's the difference between the seal teams and the Marine Corps.
[00:53:45] You brought tie pads?
[00:53:46] I brought mats.
[00:53:47] I mean, I had mats rooms.
[00:53:50] That's ridiculous.
[00:53:51] The budget is much, much different.
[00:53:53] Yeah, I know.
[00:53:54] It's like almost embarrassing for me to admit, you know.
[00:53:56] You also did a lot of wrestling drills with Travis Manion,
[00:54:00] who's one of your one of your buddies.
[00:54:02] And so he helped you out.
[00:54:04] And there's an interesting part in the book where you talk about you and Travis are going to
[00:54:12] Brett who you just talked about.
[00:54:14] You're going to his funeral.
[00:54:15] This is the guy with shot at some little scum full of stuff.
[00:54:18] It's a stay tailgather.
[00:54:19] There you go.
[00:54:20] Shot the chest and killed.
[00:54:22] You guys are going to his funeral.
[00:54:25] And the wrestling coach tells you guys to write your own
[00:54:30] ULIGIES for yourselves, for yourselves.
[00:54:34] Interesting drill.
[00:54:36] That's an interesting drill.
[00:54:38] Joel shared his head coach at the Naval Academy wrestling team right now.
[00:54:43] And it was wild.
[00:54:45] You know, so Brett Harmon was a Marine infantry officer.
[00:54:48] He was in third baton, second reign to which would be my eventual baton.
[00:54:51] When to an NC State football tailgather, there are some guys they're drinking and driving.
[00:54:55] And they almost hit a kid.
[00:54:57] And so they him and his buddy from Chicago, civilian,
[00:55:00] ran out from the car and stopped them and they got an argument.
[00:55:02] What are you guys doing?
[00:55:03] You guys are drunk.
[00:55:04] Should be driving the guys get out.
[00:55:05] They started to scuffle.
[00:55:06] Brett and his buddy won.
[00:55:07] Came back a couple hours later.
[00:55:08] Shot them both point blank.
[00:55:10] Shot Brett's buddy in the face and Brett went to get the gun from
[00:55:13] he got shot in the chest and they died.
[00:55:15] And so he was interesting because as we were writing this
[00:55:19] you will, you know, me and Travis, we were so close.
[00:55:23] And he was a fantastic wrestler and one of the toughest human beings I've ever known.
[00:55:27] I mean, what we used to do to each other was ridiculous training.
[00:55:30] I mean, if it is long as it was standing, I would, I would just destroy him.
[00:55:34] As soon as he got sick of that and wanted to tackle me on the ground,
[00:55:36] I wasn't getting up anymore and he was destroying me.
[00:55:38] But it would just go back and forth for hours.
[00:55:41] And instead of playing video game, drinking beer, going out and hitting on girls,
[00:55:44] that's what me and Travis would do on a Friday and Saturday night.
[00:55:48] And it was really tough when you really start to think,
[00:55:51] what do you want to be said when it's all over for you?
[00:55:56] How do you want to be remembered?
[00:55:59] And I remember Travis, he really struggled with this.
[00:56:03] Struggle.
[00:56:04] I mean, he was so loud talking about that.
[00:56:06] It reels in the plane.
[00:56:07] It was weird.
[00:56:08] And part of it was because we were just struggling with the fact that,
[00:56:10] you know, our friend is dead.
[00:56:12] You know, for such a weird circumstance.
[00:56:15] Yeah, we could understand if it was an idea or a sniper or something like that.
[00:56:18] And not this.
[00:56:19] And, you know, several years later, it was wild.
[00:56:25] But, you know, Joel shared when he would give Travis his eulogy.
[00:56:29] He brought that story up.
[00:56:31] Travis would get killed in Felicia.
[00:56:33] And I remember driving up the Travis's funeral.
[00:56:36] And, you know, Travis is one of those guys that you just,
[00:56:40] you just, you just, you just never, he can't die.
[00:56:42] He's just too bad.
[00:56:43] He's too tough.
[00:56:44] He's too smart, too good.
[00:56:46] So, remember driving up the funeral and I had my wife there with me.
[00:56:49] And she was actually trying to make plans for their twin sister.
[00:56:52] Hey, we're going to be in town.
[00:56:53] We lived in North Carolina.
[00:56:54] Let's get together this weekend.
[00:56:55] But her twin sister's husband didn't want to get together.
[00:56:58] There was a part of me that didn't,
[00:57:00] Travis isn't dead.
[00:57:01] Like, I'm going to get there.
[00:57:02] And we're all going to hang out tonight.
[00:57:04] And I remember when I walked into that wake and I actually saw him.
[00:57:07] I mean, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
[00:57:10] It was brutal.
[00:57:11] I loved that guy so much.
[00:57:15] And we carried him the next day.
[00:57:17] But, you know, it's just, it's so crazy how connected it was because
[00:57:21] Ronnie Winchester died and I'll kind of my rack.
[00:57:27] And three days later, Brett Harmon died at that NC State football game.
[00:57:33] We would go to Brett Harmon's funeral,
[00:57:37] right around Ulligis, with Joel shared who had then ended up giving Travis
[00:57:41] Manion his actual Ulligis.
[00:57:43] And I would carry Travis to his grave.
[00:57:45] I went to Alkai, my rack, and actually replaced Ronnie's
[00:57:49] Platoon and turned over with the replacement Platoon commander who took over
[00:57:53] for him when he passed.
[00:57:55] While I was an infantry officer, course, J.P. Blacksmith was killed in
[00:57:59] Flusion.
[00:58:00] And I got this a little lot of work, but when J.P. died,
[00:58:05] I found out, right before I had my last amateur fight, I was an infantry officer
[00:58:09] course.
[00:58:10] And I'm getting ready to fight in two hours for a title.
[00:58:13] Travis Manion was my quarter-man.
[00:58:15] And we're in the hotel room and he got a call and he looked like he had seen a ghost.
[00:58:19] Like, Travis was wrong.
[00:58:20] He was nothing to do, I'll tell you, for the fight.
[00:58:23] And we had gotten, as like, no, I know something's up.
[00:58:26] What the hell happened?
[00:58:27] Travis told me, and do J.P. Blacksmith got killed in Flusion.
[00:58:30] So Travis tells me by J.P.'s death,
[00:58:32] I turned over with J.P.'s company, my second tour.
[00:58:36] And so I met all of his old Marines, all of his old
[00:58:38] old and old and old and old and old and old and old and old.
[00:58:40] It's such a small world that we lived in breed then.
[00:58:44] You know, and so in my little platoon commanders,
[00:58:46] notebook, I had pictures of all of them.
[00:58:48] And before every mission I would flip through,
[00:58:50] and you just think, how do I make them proud?
[00:58:53] Before every fight, I would look at their pictures and look at the picture of my Marines.
[00:58:58] How do I make them proud?
[00:58:59] And I still think about it to this day.
[00:59:02] And I end a lot of my speeches on this.
[00:59:05] You know, they no longer have the chance to live.
[00:59:08] Who am I to take this life for granted?
[00:59:10] Because they would give anything to have one more day.
[00:59:13] Their families would give anything to have one more day.
[00:59:16] And I try to remind myself of that all the time.
[00:59:19] And you don't have to serve the military to think like that.
[00:59:22] People will look into, well, that's extreme.
[00:59:24] Well, who have you lost in your life?
[00:59:26] What would make them proud?
[00:59:27] How do you truly memorialize them?
[00:59:29] It's certainly not through failure.
[00:59:31] It's not through being idle in life.
[00:59:33] Live a life of substance, not just existence.
[00:59:36] And that, you know, as you do that, and you remember them,
[00:59:40] that makes them proud.
[00:59:41] That makes it worth it.
[00:59:43] You know, it's very similar to that final scene in saving private Ryan.
[00:59:47] Where he's like, did I earn it?
[00:59:49] You know, and for those of us who served and were in those great circumstances,
[00:59:52] or for those people, there's people that were in tragedies,
[00:59:54] where they were in car accidents.
[00:59:55] They lost people.
[00:59:56] They think the same way.
[00:59:57] They think a lot the way they do that we do when we look at life
[01:00:00] and taking things for granted and achieving everyday and adding value.
[01:00:05] Yeah, the darkness in the world, regardless of where you are.
[01:00:11] You, you know, speaking of your combat tours,
[01:00:15] I want to kind of dive into those a little bit.
[01:00:18] And let's take you.
[01:00:21] You take over your platoon, your platoon commander now.
[01:00:24] Back to the book here.
[01:00:27] During our first platoon meeting, my introductory speech lasted less than two minutes.
[01:00:32] We're going to be aggressive.
[01:00:34] I told my new command.
[01:00:35] We're going to train our asses off.
[01:00:37] And we're going to be, and we're going to work harder than anyone else in the battalion.
[01:00:41] That was it.
[01:00:43] Short to the point, all business.
[01:00:46] What's more, they found out quickly.
[01:00:49] I wasn't kidding.
[01:00:51] So you, you guys work hard.
[01:00:55] You get prepared.
[01:00:56] You deploy to Alkaiim, which you just talked about.
[01:00:59] That's where you ended up going.
[01:01:01] And I'm jumping ahead a little bit.
[01:01:04] People are going to have to read this whole book themselves.
[01:01:06] But you're basically now setting up a position on a bridge.
[01:01:11] You're kind of a blocking force and this bridge is prevent any me from consolidating on another area.
[01:01:16] Where there's another operation going on.
[01:01:19] And I'm going to the book.
[01:01:21] Mortars began to fall on our position.
[01:01:23] As we fought back, I made sure that our vehicles moved from one spot to another.
[01:01:27] So the mortar crews would not zero in on us.
[01:01:29] From a waddy that ran perpendicular to route, emerald, several insurgents began lobbying.
[01:01:35] Rocket propelled grenades at us.
[01:01:37] The rockets exploded all around us.
[01:01:39] Then another heavy machine gun let loose.
[01:01:41] This one cited on the north bank as well.
[01:01:43] We were caught in a 180 degree crossfire.
[01:01:46] From my window I could see Corporal Delitor and Bravo 1.
[01:01:50] They were taking the brunt of the fire and Delitor briefly dipped out of the turret as bullets bounced off the home of these armored skin.
[01:01:58] Then I saw his hand pop up above the blast shield holding a video camera.
[01:02:03] It takes a rare kind of cool to do something like that.
[01:02:06] In combat, an infantry platoon's first task to achieve fire superiority over the enemy.
[01:02:12] To do this requires pouring it on the insurgents until they are forced to either disengage or go to ground.
[01:02:18] Once they're even driven off, either driven off or pinned in place, you've gained command of the fight and can dictate what happens next.
[01:02:26] Even with the tanks, as I failed to mention, you had some tanks from army tanks with you and you throughout the book have the same deep love for tanks that I have.
[01:02:39] For army tanks, marine tanks, but I love tanks.
[01:02:43] Even with the tanks, in this case, we didn't have the fire power to gain control of this battle.
[01:02:48] There were too many insurgents shooting at us from too many different places.
[01:02:52] We needed some help.
[01:02:53] I reach for the radio's headset, began calling air strikes within minutes.
[01:02:57] Huey Cobb Regunships thundered in on scene to deliver deadly accurate health fire missiles and targets we identified.
[01:03:04] So was this situation here? Was that like your first big combat scenario?
[01:03:10] It was. It was. And the thing that made it so difficult was there was another platoon assigned for that mission.
[01:03:18] Right.
[01:03:19] And they got stuck in the mud.
[01:03:21] They got stuck in the mud.
[01:03:22] They got stuck in the mud.
[01:03:23] And so we didn't get the opportunity to aerial reconnaissance.
[01:03:27] We didn't have the opportunity to look at overhead imagery of this terrain.
[01:03:31] We had nothing. I had 15 minutes. Hey, if they're not there in 15 minutes, you're a go.
[01:03:36] So in that 15 minutes, I'm briefing my guys. We're getting ready.
[01:03:40] We're now we're meeting this tank crew from Boise, Idaho.
[01:03:43] We've never even met them. I met them the day before.
[01:03:45] My guys had never worked with them before.
[01:03:47] So there was a lot of confusion that took place just in the route up.
[01:03:52] And as we got settled and started identifying targets, and as you know,
[01:03:56] in that scenario, the acoustics and in the movement, the amount of people,
[01:04:02] we are the most precise military in the history of this planet.
[01:04:07] So we not only have to identify where is the gunfire coming from?
[01:04:12] What caliber do I believe they're firing back or at us with?
[01:04:16] Because that dictates what caliber I'm allowed to return fire with.
[01:04:21] Depending on where they're shooting at me from,
[01:04:24] are they in a dug-in position or at the river?
[01:04:27] Or are they shooting at me from a building where they're civilians around?
[01:04:30] Are they shooting at me from a waddy?
[01:04:32] Where now I can drop hell fires on them. I can hit them with tanks.
[01:04:35] That's a lot going through your head when you've got four vehicles,
[01:04:39] two tanks and aircraft you're trying to control as a 24 year old kid.
[01:04:43] And everybody's waiting on you to say what's coming next.
[01:04:46] Just like in every vehicle, there's another kid in there directing everything they're doing.
[01:04:51] And that is all part of it. That was our first, our first time.
[01:04:56] When Deletory, I don't put in the book, but when I said to him over the radio,
[01:05:00] I mean, I verbally almost killed him through the radio for doing it.
[01:05:04] That wild son of a bitch.
[01:05:05] I've told this story on the podcast, but this I had a similar story.
[01:05:09] I'll tell it again right now because Mikey Montzor, who ended up
[01:05:12] getting killed in Ramadi, metal vonder, I went to his little station where he was.
[01:05:18] And the guy was like, hey, did you see Mikey's video? And I was like, no, let me see your video.
[01:05:22] And he goes, oh, Mikey was a heavy weapon, it's gone.
[01:05:26] And carried the mark 48.
[01:05:28] And so I go back into his little worm camp, Carregard, or in Ramadi.
[01:05:31] I go back into his little kuchi, a built from south of him.
[01:05:33] Like Mikey, let me see your video.
[01:05:35] And he goes, oh, Roger that, sir. So he pulls out his little camera.
[01:05:38] And he shows the video.
[01:05:39] And there's a massive fire fight going on in the moolob district of Ramadi.
[01:05:44] And he's got the camera up.
[01:05:46] And you can see it ducked out and go up. He's filming everything.
[01:05:49] And he gets done showing me. And at one point in the video, he turns the camera
[01:05:53] himself and he goes, it's the moolob, which was just classic Mikey.
[01:05:58] And so he gets done. And of course, I'm all hardcore.
[01:06:01] And I go, hey, Mikey, bro, what are you doing out there?
[01:06:05] You're in a firefight. You need to be on your pig gun, getting rounds down and killing bad guys.
[01:06:10] He's like, sir, I'm sorry, I was, I was windchester.
[01:06:15] He had no more people like me. He had to dump the thousand rounds.
[01:06:19] And I was like, all right, Mikey, you're good. You know, that you're fine.
[01:06:22] You can see it all you want if you go windchester.
[01:06:24] But yeah, I was like, you probably worked too out.
[01:06:28] Oh, no, I didn't. I was about that.
[01:06:29] I was so mad. So mad.
[01:06:32] Another thing, let me just give you this prompt.
[01:06:35] And you're going to hear this too when you, when you get off this podcast and people
[01:06:39] going to hit you up on social media, you're going to hear from young, so you're going
[01:06:42] to hear from soldiers and Marines that are going to ask you questions because they listen to this.
[01:06:47] And they get knowledge from it.
[01:06:49] Is there anything that you didn't expect that you wish somebody would have told you
[01:06:54] going into that first firefight for someone that's in basic training right now or at the basic school right now?
[01:07:00] Anything that you piece of advice you'd give them?
[01:07:03] Yeah, you know, a few things.
[01:07:06] You know, one, don't go in there.
[01:07:09] Guns a blazing right away because in, in that circumstance, the sound is actually one of your better indicators or where the gunfire is coming from.
[01:07:18] Because when that heat is blazing, you're not going to see a muzzle flash.
[01:07:22] It just doesn't exist, right?
[01:07:24] The other thing is when you, when you are keeping your vehicles mobile, that doesn't allow you to lock in on a T&E system with a heavy machine gun.
[01:07:32] So you've got to be smart in the increments that you move in and the formations you move in
[01:07:37] and make sure that your, your machine gunners have drilled that.
[01:07:40] That's what we would do drill.
[01:07:41] We would do T&E drills till my guy's hands blood and not just that the primary machine gun or everybody in that truck.
[01:07:47] So if one goes down the other comes up so that when we moved them, they can quickly get back on that same target.
[01:07:52] Because basically what that became a game of is you suppress that position with a 240 golfer, medium machine gun,
[01:07:58] until I can talk the tanks on and then the tanks, they don't miss.
[01:08:01] It's all computer.
[01:08:02] It's like a video game.
[01:08:03] And we dug in positions just aim a little bit lower and watch the shit fly and excuse my language.
[01:08:08] But that was one of the problems when we went in and we started receiving some gunfire.
[01:08:14] Everybody started shooting firework and identified with, but then also we're getting shot from other positions.
[01:08:18] We can't really tell because of the acoustics until somebody actually hits a way to get hit for back here too.
[01:08:24] And then some of the increments my drivers would move in.
[01:08:27] They moved so much that it was no longer a small adjustment on the T&E for that machine gunner.
[01:08:32] Now they've got to get out of the turret exposing themselves to work that thing in.
[01:08:37] And because of collateral damage, you can't just work it in, send some rounds down the range.
[01:08:42] Oops, I hit the building 10 feet away. You're not allowed to do that.
[01:08:45] You've got to get that sucker into where you see it on the site and then you can start sending rounds down.
[01:08:49] Well, that guy gets to shoot at you because you're so concerned with collateral damage.
[01:08:53] And so, drill, drill, drill.
[01:08:58] Because a mortar drop in on the top of a Humvee is not a good thing.
[01:09:02] And they are more accurate than you realize.
[01:09:05] These, the enemy out there has been launched in mortars and indirect fire for decades,
[01:09:11] where you get a little bit of ammo to do it on range 400 out in the, out in the palms for Marines that is.
[01:09:18] These guys get to do it every day for real.
[01:09:20] Yeah, and you know what, they don't even have to be good. They get lucky one time.
[01:09:23] And, and human life doesn't mean anything to them, but it means everything does.
[01:09:28] So they get lucky one time. And there's, there's, that's the way it goes.
[01:09:32] That's the way combat is.
[01:09:34] Um,
[01:09:39] So you get done with that and, and,
[01:09:44] tank hits an IED.
[01:09:47] You need to find out what's going on. And basically there's a, there's a burning Abrams here going on.
[01:09:54] Um, suddenly a huge explosion drowned out all other battle sounds.
[01:09:58] The ground rolled and shook as if the fault line had suddenly collapsed beneath us.
[01:10:02] A head of maelstrom of sand, dirt, smoke, and flames, boiled skyward.
[01:10:06] Before I could even ask Sergeant Peterson's voice came over the radio,
[01:10:10] mortar hit one of the tanks.
[01:10:11] My column break to stop.
[01:10:13] The explosion morphed into a dry into a small dirty brown mushroom cloud over,
[01:10:19] South Sergeant plunkies M1.
[01:10:22] No way a mortar did that. That had to have been an massive IED.
[01:10:26] Luke Miller called over to me.
[01:10:28] I have no calms of them.
[01:10:30] So now you radio for a meta-vac. You're trying to find out what's going on.
[01:10:33] The tanks on fire.
[01:10:35] And here we go back to the book.
[01:10:36] I took a deep breath and ran for the burning Abrams.
[01:10:39] I took only a few steps before I saw Robertson frantically waving back at me.
[01:10:44] Wait, I'm sorry, waving me back.
[01:10:46] Just then a line of bullets stitched across the sand about ten feet ahead of me.
[01:10:50] I executed my best football shuttle run and dashed back for cover.
[01:10:55] Bravo three laid down suppressing fire which allowed me to get across the open space
[01:11:01] on my second attempt.
[01:11:02] So let's cover and move another thing.
[01:11:04] Chapter in the book.
[01:11:05] So I talk about all the time.
[01:11:06] This is the fundamental.
[01:11:08] That's what it is. Cover move.
[01:11:11] Then you guys are doing it right here.
[01:11:13] When I reached Robertson he shouted, we still got two wounded in there.
[01:11:16] We had to get them out quickly.
[01:11:18] I climbed onto the tank.
[01:11:19] Miller following a short time later.
[01:11:21] The incoming fire was heavy and more than once.
[01:11:23] We had to duck behind the turret.
[01:11:25] So getting your game on Bryan stand.
[01:11:30] Yeah.
[01:11:31] The funny thing about it was I was trying to maintain a low profile when I got on the tank.
[01:11:37] There's little micro things you can hide behind.
[01:11:40] And the drivers that the person deepest in that thing.
[01:11:45] And we couldn't get him out. He was the last one and he was a bigger guy.
[01:11:49] And I'm trying to lift him. I'm a strong dude.
[01:11:51] I lifted way to a racquet man was a strong bigger guy than I am right now.
[01:11:55] Couldn't get him out.
[01:11:56] And I couldn't understand why and he's looking at me.
[01:11:59] He's got blood all means like why is this taking so long.
[01:12:01] And he doesn't say it that clear.
[01:12:03] I mean he's out of it.
[01:12:04] I didn't know at the time he was paralyzed from the chest down there.
[01:12:07] And so I realized you only when I'm getting him out.
[01:12:10] It's if I get my legs underneath me.
[01:12:12] And that's going to create a target.
[01:12:14] And so.
[01:12:16] You think sometimes we think some silly things in combat.
[01:12:19] And I just thought, look, if I'm going to get shot by these guys.
[01:12:21] What's the last thing I want them to see before they hit me?
[01:12:23] And that's my rear end.
[01:12:24] So when I hopped up, I faced that rate towards a foot.
[01:12:28] I honestly think I think would save me.
[01:12:30] You know, you'll talk to people that hunt.
[01:12:33] And they tell me when they get that perfect buck in their sights.
[01:12:37] Huge rack.
[01:12:38] And it's such an easy shot, but they're so excited that they pull the shot and they miss.
[01:12:42] Well, when I've got a Kevlar helmet on.
[01:12:47] I look who seems spaceball.
[01:12:50] Oh yeah.
[01:12:51] I mean, you can see right now it's just the head.
[01:12:53] When I got a Kevlar on, I mean, if someone's trying to snipe me or they're trying to shoot
[01:12:59] the mini machine gun and they see they're like, oh man, I got this dude.
[01:13:03] They missed.
[01:13:04] And I squires, they were pulling them up.
[01:13:06] And we literally, you know, we almost collapse off the tank and land on top of another guy
[01:13:11] and got them down.
[01:13:12] But the whole thing I could think of, I mean, obviously great when we landed.
[01:13:16] Hey, I don't think I got shot.
[01:13:17] Did you get hit?
[01:13:18] He didn't get hit.
[01:13:19] And we were able to get them all.
[01:13:21] But that was that was the thing happened.
[01:13:23] Sometimes you just get lucky.
[01:13:25] And I think I presented such a big target.
[01:13:27] Whoever was behind that trigger.
[01:13:28] Just straight.
[01:13:29] Get looted.
[01:13:30] Yeah, that's a tight merit to you.
[01:13:32] I'll tell you when when this enemy sees a downed vehicle, it is like a bullet magnet.
[01:13:37] The fact that you survived that is ridiculous.
[01:13:41] And yeah, it must, it's a miracle and luck and everything else because when the enemy
[01:13:46] sees a target like that, man, they just pour fire onto it because they know there's
[01:13:50] creating a total catastrophic situation for us.
[01:13:52] And they almost always have a camera on it too.
[01:13:54] Yeah.
[01:13:55] The they are there.
[01:13:56] That was pop up on film.
[01:13:57] It didn't, I couldn't find it.
[01:13:59] But they study film like NFL teams study film and sometimes you find their footage where
[01:14:04] they didn't even attack you.
[01:14:05] They're just watching what your response was to see what they're going to do next.
[01:14:09] People underestimate the evil and the detail that they go through.
[01:14:13] Maybe I'll make this sniper decided to delete that video because he was going to get so much trouble
[01:14:18] for this in the beginning.
[01:14:19] Yeah.
[01:14:20] The big shit in America.
[01:14:22] He's like, how did you miss this guy?
[01:14:24] Look at the size of the head.
[01:14:25] So you call in actually you call in helicopters.
[01:14:33] They come in under fire.
[01:14:36] Don't take any hits.
[01:14:38] I'm not sure.
[01:14:39] I still haven't.
[01:14:40] I've not been able to find who was flying that he was.
[01:14:44] I never was able to find out.
[01:14:46] And I mean, I wish I could.
[01:14:49] That guy who landed because a whole squad was taking out a few clicks to our east and there was no
[01:14:54] back birds in this guy.
[01:14:56] I mean, we laid down the butterfly trigger so that he could land but man, he showed some guts.
[01:15:00] He would have been fired.
[01:15:01] Had they got hit and had that halo going down, but he didn't care.
[01:15:04] He knew there was a Marine there that needed to get out and need to get out now or else he was done.
[01:15:09] And he landed got him and lifted off and I never saw him again.
[01:15:13] I'm telling you that that's a real hit.
[01:15:15] That was a Marine Corps.
[01:15:16] It was a Marine Corps pilot in a hewie of all things.
[01:15:19] A hewie.
[01:15:20] That took some stones.
[01:15:22] And I wish I could find that person.
[01:15:25] Well, if I hear this podcast, reach out.
[01:15:27] I hope so.
[01:15:29] Now, you get that back to base.
[01:15:32] Hela's just run and you guys get back.
[01:15:37] Yeah, great.
[01:15:38] We survived and then you get re-tasked.
[01:15:41] You got to go bring Emma, weapons, or sorry, Emma, water fuel back up there.
[01:15:47] And this was an interesting.
[01:15:52] I got this and I kind of brought it up earlier, but back to the book.
[01:15:55] Just before we rolled out my Alpha section arrived back at Alkaim after a very dull day covering the jump off point for the assault force task with crossing the afraidies.
[01:16:05] They encountered no opposition.
[01:16:08] And my Bravo section marines quickly busted out the stories of our busy day much to the jealousy of the rest of the platoon.
[01:16:15] So what I was trying to explain earlier.
[01:16:18] So these guys, you know, these guys are an crazy firefight.
[01:16:22] Almost get killed.
[01:16:23] They got guys getting wounded.
[01:16:24] They come back.
[01:16:25] The other other squad had no action.
[01:16:28] And what are they?
[01:16:29] They're jealous.
[01:16:30] And Matt.
[01:16:31] Alpha section was so full of aggressive angry marines who wanted nothing more to get into the fight.
[01:16:37] They lobbied to go out on this run, but I vetoed the idea.
[01:16:41] Sergeant Pete's men knew the terrain now and we needed that experience to shepherd the two trucks to the bridge.
[01:16:46] I told my Alpha section that I had plenty of opportunities in the days to come,
[01:16:49] but I knew as we left the wire they remained on the base frustrated and anxious.
[01:16:54] That's just tells you what the Marine Corps is all about.
[01:16:58] Heated me that night.
[01:16:59] I'm sure heated me.
[01:17:02] And then, okay, so you do that.
[01:17:04] That's another hell run.
[01:17:05] And again, I'm not going to read your entire book.
[01:17:07] People can buy this book and read it.
[01:17:10] But when you get back again, another just crazy run.
[01:17:14] When you get back, that's what you got to go back to the bridge again.
[01:17:19] That's good times.
[01:17:21] So here you go.
[01:17:23] Back to the book.
[01:17:24] We're going back to the bridge tonight.
[01:17:25] I started.
[01:17:26] Alpha, it's out of the last couple of fights.
[01:17:28] They were fresh and eager and ready to go in the fray.
[01:17:30] Right now, Bravo section had all the bragging rights.
[01:17:33] And that was driving Francis's men nuts.
[01:17:36] When I broke the news, I liked this part.
[01:17:39] When I broke the news, I saw no fear in anyone's eyes.
[01:17:42] Just anticipation and excitement.
[01:17:45] Be careful what you wish for.
[01:17:47] I thought.
[01:17:49] So again, Marines are fired up to go.
[01:17:54] And you go out again.
[01:17:58] And this one again goes sideways.
[01:18:01] You're using up all your nine.
[01:18:03] Oh man, this one got ugly quick.
[01:18:05] And, you know, we expected it too.
[01:18:07] But there was things working against us a little bit in that.
[01:18:10] We had to go up there.
[01:18:11] They tank that had to catastrophic kill days earlier.
[01:18:16] We had to go up there and recover.
[01:18:17] You can't leave that in the battlefield.
[01:18:19] And so I had never even, I'd never know what a Mike 88 recovery vehicle was.
[01:18:24] I learned that in Ramadhi as well.
[01:18:26] It's a tank with no guns.
[01:18:29] And it's a mechanic vehicle.
[01:18:32] They go fix the other tank or they tell them.
[01:18:35] And so we were going to meet a tank section.
[01:18:38] So two regular Abrams tanks plus this Mike 88 tank recovery vehicle.
[01:18:42] In the middle of the desert.
[01:18:44] Here's your grid.
[01:18:45] We'll meet there.
[01:18:46] I'm going to kick my order there.
[01:18:48] I've never even met these Marines before.
[01:18:50] Hey, by the way, here's your introduction to my Alpha section.
[01:18:53] By the way, too.
[01:18:54] We're going to head straight north and try and catch them to my surprise.
[01:18:57] And get right up to the bridge.
[01:18:59] But I told them, look, this area has been heavily guarded.
[01:19:02] So be prepared.
[01:19:04] Well, this master started who's driving the Mike 88.
[01:19:07] Let's me know.
[01:19:08] Hey, sir, just seeing no once we get on that asphalt.
[01:19:11] This thing only going to go about 10 miles an hour at best.
[01:19:16] What?
[01:19:17] As you start to wait.
[01:19:18] One.
[01:19:19] We're good on sand.
[01:19:21] But we don't go very fast on on asphalt.
[01:19:24] Like, well, you don't want to go on sand.
[01:19:26] You know what they bury in sand for us.
[01:19:28] And what they have wait for us there.
[01:19:30] So men, we hit the line of departure.
[01:19:33] And they opened up on us.
[01:19:35] And that Mike 88 just crawling crawling.
[01:19:39] And my section leader Steph Saren France, his vehicle,
[01:19:43] gets hit with an RPG.
[01:19:45] Just missed by an IED.
[01:19:46] But the back of the vehicles on fire.
[01:19:48] And when we're getting hit, the tanks start returning fire.
[01:19:52] And here's another really good lesson for young officers and just young
[01:19:57] service members in general.
[01:19:58] When you're fighting at night and you've got night vision goggles on.
[01:20:01] And tanks are returning fire into these buildings.
[01:20:04] Right?
[01:20:05] They were shooting down on us in these buildings.
[01:20:06] Shooting us through windows.
[01:20:07] The tanks are identical.
[01:20:08] We're identifying targets and they're taking them out.
[01:20:10] The debris.
[01:20:11] It's heavy.
[01:20:12] The material that these buildings are made of.
[01:20:15] It's very heavy and it blinds us.
[01:20:17] Couldn't see now because all the damage the tanks did.
[01:20:20] And my lead vehicle blew the turn.
[01:20:22] Back of the vehicles on fire.
[01:20:24] They blow the turn.
[01:20:25] So we all blow the turn and link back up.
[01:20:28] And now as I look down the blockhead,
[01:20:29] I can see these lights blinking.
[01:20:31] Which typically tells us it's signaling an ambush that are expecting us to go that route.
[01:20:36] It's an adecision time.
[01:20:38] And you've got to be quick.
[01:20:40] So at that time, we're about to work in a headless.
[01:20:42] Turn the combat around.
[01:20:43] Let's hit the turn where we know we're going to get right to the people that need us.
[01:20:46] Right to that down tank.
[01:20:47] Let's fight our way through this kills.
[01:20:48] Only we call it some air strikes.
[01:20:50] That time is when they let loose those suicide vehicles.
[01:20:52] And one got through our perimeter.
[01:20:54] And man.
[01:20:55] I've, one of the Marines actually filmed that explosion.
[01:21:00] And man, just a horrible family.
[01:21:04] I heard that explosion.
[01:21:05] I just, the first thing went through my head.
[01:21:07] I just got five kids killed immediately.
[01:21:09] It's the first thing that went through my head.
[01:21:12] Radio silence and everybody's waiting for there's no crying.
[01:21:15] There's no mourning.
[01:21:16] There's no time out.
[01:21:17] There's no haystacks or enrovers and you take over.
[01:21:19] No.
[01:21:20] I mean, after that thought, my next, my next thing needs to be me giving orders out of my mouth.
[01:21:24] And moving people forward because we don't have time to mourn right now.
[01:21:28] And, and so immediately I set a perimeter with the tanks.
[01:21:31] I establish which vehicles going to be the tow vehicle for our down vehicle where the casualty's going to go.
[01:21:35] Where's the quorum and I get out of my vehicle and I push that's what leaders do.
[01:21:38] We go to the point of friction.
[01:21:39] Where's the point of friction?
[01:21:41] And that was my vehicle.
[01:21:42] Let's just hit with the suicide vehicle.
[01:21:44] Man, I get there.
[01:21:46] And on top of it is this 22 year old kid Jeff Lampson who's built like a number two pencil.
[01:21:53] Right?
[01:21:54] He was just in this vehicle.
[01:21:57] I mean, this vehicle is destroyed.
[01:22:00] How he's conscious, I don't know.
[01:22:02] But he's on top of it pulling our gun or out of the turret who's got a piece of shrapnel in his head bigger than that book.
[01:22:08] Everybody in the vehicles, everybody's wounded.
[01:22:12] But staffs aren't France comes out in the whole side of his face as melton.
[01:22:15] He's like, sir, we're going to be good.
[01:22:17] We're going to be, I was never more relieved in my life.
[01:22:19] There's still getting shot at.
[01:22:21] France is basically walking, but he's not totally conscious yet.
[01:22:24] There's like bullets in the garden.
[01:22:26] Like I got a grab and put it behind the vehicle for a second because he's on it, of course.
[01:22:31] But man, to see Lampson, this kid who actually had a little bit of an attitude at the time with one of the guys I had to correct an awful lot.
[01:22:41] He's a little too long.
[01:22:42] He tried to grow a mustache and I thought a peach fuzz.
[01:22:44] I mean, he's a kid.
[01:22:46] You look at the, I mean, you would never imagine that this is a warrior, but in this time of need,
[01:22:50] I'm telling you man, he was saving lives and it was so humbling and so motivating to see that.
[01:22:59] And we were able to, we got everybody in that mic 88.
[01:23:02] Eventually got the toe got out of there and I mean, we called in a massive air strike and we won.
[01:23:07] But we didn't pitch a shut up.
[01:23:09] That's for sure.
[01:23:10] And in the hardest part of that was when all my casualties are loaded on, you have, we're not doctors.
[01:23:16] We have no idea.
[01:23:17] When you see a guy with Shrapnel out of his brain like that, you think they're done.
[01:23:20] So my Marines, they think we may have lost two or three of these folks and they're down.
[01:23:25] And as far as I know, we're out there to fight from the three, four, five.
[01:23:29] That was gas right that had.
[01:23:31] What was the Shrapnel said was he was he walking wounded was he.
[01:23:35] So he would, he would come to.
[01:23:37] He got shot as Lampson was pulling him out of the turret.
[01:23:40] He got shot again in the elbow as we were pulling him out.
[01:23:44] And we got him in the meta-vac and he was just he was, I remember he was he was cursive.
[01:23:48] I can't believe I let them get us.
[01:23:49] I can't believe I let them get us.
[01:23:50] I can't believe I let them get us.
[01:23:51] Blame themself for the suicide vehicle getting to the vehicle.
[01:23:53] And I told him, yes, it's my fault.
[01:23:55] It's not your fault.
[01:23:56] And, but at least he was talking.
[01:23:58] Yeah.
[01:23:59] But I mean, this, you know, this is pretty freaky.
[01:24:03] When you see a piece of metal and someone's head just like this.
[01:24:06] And I don't mean he couldn't see himself.
[01:24:07] And I didn't know anybody wanted to tell him.
[01:24:09] Nobody wanted to say hey, reach up and touch with his in your brain right now.
[01:24:12] But he was gone.
[01:24:14] I mean, once he left that day, we didn't see him in the rest of the deployment.
[01:24:16] I didn't see him until I had gotten back.
[01:24:19] And the craziest thing is,
[01:24:21] we reunited for an episode of Ultimate Insider with the UFC.
[01:24:29] And I didn't really know what they were after.
[01:24:32] And this, this producer, you know, asked me if I could get this guy there.
[01:24:37] You're going to do a story.
[01:24:38] It was really going to be honorable to him, this and that.
[01:24:41] And it was, right?
[01:24:42] But at the same time he's sitting this next to each other and he's asking this Marine.
[01:24:45] Hey, do you blame Brian Stan for this happening?
[01:24:48] Do you blame this for hat?
[01:24:50] I mean, it was, it was dark and it was difficult.
[01:24:53] It was, it was hard for both of us, man, because, you know, for gas,
[01:24:56] he lived, right?
[01:24:58] And, and he's got a family now, but the amount of headaches,
[01:25:00] the piercing headaches, this man struggles with.
[01:25:03] You know, in and out of coms, trying to text him.
[01:25:05] I don't know what, you know, where's numbers at?
[01:25:08] Um, he's a great warrior, great dude.
[01:25:12] But the pain he lives with every day.
[01:25:14] I mean, this never going away.
[01:25:15] He had, I think, four brain surgeries after that.
[01:25:18] Four brain surgeries.
[01:25:20] Unbelievable.
[01:25:21] And he was blaming himself crazy.
[01:25:24] Warriors.
[01:25:26] And you know, you, you kind of wrap up that here.
[01:25:31] Going back to the book.
[01:25:33] Our unit, three two Marines is known as the Betel Bastards in 1943,
[01:25:39] the Betelian took part in Operation Galvanic, the invasion of Tarlah.
[01:25:45] Betelio Island was the main target of the landing force and the Marines faced an entrenched enemy with pre-registered fields of fire on the beaches.
[01:25:54] Pleas you don't know what that is.
[01:25:56] That's an actual nightmare when the enemy already knows where their rounds are going to go.
[01:26:02] Where their rounds are going to land when they fire them.
[01:26:04] This is a worst case scenario.
[01:26:06] The first assault waves were nearly wiped out by machine gunner mortar fires.
[01:26:10] They waited through the lagoon onto the narrow beach.
[01:26:12] It took 76 hours to clear the island, which was barely 2,000 yards long and a few score wide.
[01:26:20] Over 3,000 Marines and sailors died or fell wounded during what became the most ferocious close quarter battle ever fought by the United States Marine Corps.
[01:26:29] That was the legacy of my unit, a legacy of determination, heroism, and stoic resolve in the face of unimaginable adversity.
[01:26:40] On May 10th, 2008, my Marines proved they were cut from the same cloth.
[01:26:47] Indeed.
[01:26:51] It's so humbling when you watch these young men from all different walks of life.
[01:26:57] Some of them only citizens in the United States for a couple years at that point really diverse backgrounds.
[01:27:04] It's not a gang full of white people.
[01:27:06] It's very diverse.
[01:27:07] They don't care.
[01:27:09] Man, when they're getting shot at, there is nobody ducking for cover.
[01:27:17] Nobody.
[01:27:18] They are getting after it.
[01:27:20] They're love and care for one another for the mission.
[01:27:24] For people trying to destroy their way of life.
[01:27:27] It's awe-inspiring to watch their selfless acts.
[01:27:30] I mean, what they'll do.
[01:27:32] And this was more obviously direct engagement against an enemy.
[01:27:38] But I've seen them just like Lampson was willing to sacrifice himself to save Robert Gas.
[01:27:45] I've seen Marines do the same to save innocent Iraqi kids.
[01:27:51] The same care that they had for one another.
[01:27:55] They had for the people that they were there to protect.
[01:27:57] And that gets lost a lot when people talk about these wars.
[01:28:01] It's become cool to paint our military like we're this brutal force.
[01:28:06] That's wiped out all these people in these different countries.
[01:28:11] These were men who were such great professionals, but under the most extreme circumstances.
[01:28:19] Understood that they could lose their life.
[01:28:22] And that was 100% acceptable to them.
[01:28:25] If that meant saving the guy next to him.
[01:28:27] And that.
[01:28:29] It's hard for me to meet somebody like Michael Strahan or football player, famous person.
[01:28:35] All impressive people.
[01:28:36] But it's hard for me to meet someone like that.
[01:28:38] And be like, oh my god, can I get a picture for Instagram?
[01:28:41] When you've been around 19, 21, 20-year-old kids.
[01:28:46] And these kids don't come from rich backgrounds.
[01:28:49] They didn't have a whole lot.
[01:28:52] There was a reason when our nation was in two wars.
[01:28:55] They decided to sign up and be infantry in the Marine Corps.
[01:28:59] They will forever be the greatest people I've ever been surrounded with.
[01:29:05] Yeah, you know, I talk about that all the time.
[01:29:10] The fact that when we were in Ramadhi specifically.
[01:29:14] You know, here we were the special operations guys, the Navy SEALs, whatever.
[01:29:21] We all of us, all of us guys.
[01:29:24] We just had such admiration and love for the Marine Corps.
[01:29:32] And for the Army soldiers that we work with, those guys, like you said.
[01:29:36] And for us, we're sitting there, we're going, man, we've got infinitely more training.
[01:29:41] infinitely more training than a grunt has.
[01:29:44] That's just the way it is.
[01:29:45] Absolutely.
[01:29:46] Like you talk about the budget.
[01:29:47] We used to shoot more rounds in a week than a Marine Corps company.
[01:29:52] We're shooting their work up, no kidding.
[01:29:54] Like we saw the numbers.
[01:29:56] So we get infinitely more training.
[01:29:58] We get better gear.
[01:30:00] And yet you go down to the government center in Ramadhi.
[01:30:05] You go down to Cop Falcon.
[01:30:07] And you look at those soldiers and Marines that are getting after it every day.
[01:30:13] And that's why we just had nothing but the utmost highest respect for those guys.
[01:30:17] And they knew it.
[01:30:18] That was nasty fighting down there too.
[01:30:20] Yeah.
[01:30:21] Nasty fighting in Ramadhi.
[01:30:22] Yeah.
[01:30:23] I'm going to take us back to the book here.
[01:30:30] An Amtrak, a lightly armored amphibious vehicle, first-puttune,
[01:30:34] three, two, five, struck a landmine only a few hundred meters from our position.
[01:30:39] So this is another operation that you're out on.
[01:30:42] And this is where we started this day off.
[01:30:45] We heard the explosion saw the smoke and flames rising behind us and then heard the cries for help over the radio.
[01:30:52] We couldn't go to their aid.
[01:30:54] The bridge had not yet been cleared.
[01:30:56] And we were almost certain had it been mined by the enemy.
[01:30:59] Besides, we couldn't leave our blocking position without exposing the left-hand
[01:31:04] left-flank.
[01:31:05] The track burned as three, two, five's fellow Marines and my friend and mentor Lieutenant
[01:31:11] Diana from our weapons company, frantically tried to free the men trapped inside.
[01:31:19] Inside Alpha 3, I could see this color drained from my men's faces.
[01:31:24] They looked absolutely stricken.
[01:31:27] Then the tracks ready ammunition began cooking off.
[01:31:33] With each detonation, I could see my men flinch.
[01:31:37] I ordered everyone to face south.
[01:31:39] I didn't want my men to see what was unfolding.
[01:31:43] Hearing it over the radio was bad enough.
[01:31:48] Five Marines died inside the track.
[01:31:50] Everyone else inside suffered wounds of varying degrees.
[01:31:54] The driver was pulled from the wreckage.
[01:31:56] His face bloody and missing teeth.
[01:31:58] The explosion at slammed his head against the vehicles front console.
[01:32:01] Another Marine emerged with his uniform on fire.
[01:32:04] Quick thinking men nearby got him on the ground and put the flames out with a fire extinguisher.
[01:32:10] All my experiences in combat, this is the one that haunts me the most, the feeling of complete impotence
[01:32:18] in the face of such a profound tragedy scarred us all that day.
[01:32:26] A Gabe Diana had actually served in Leema 325.
[01:32:31] It's a reserve unit out of Columbus, Ohio.
[01:32:33] Before he became active duty and then became an officer, he was in elicited with 325.
[01:32:39] I remember when we were starting this operation in 325 came to our base.
[01:32:44] He was bringing some of these guys.
[01:32:47] Hey man, he grew up with them.
[01:32:49] These were his brothers.
[01:32:51] Now they were firefighters, they were police officers all brought together for this mission.
[01:32:56] Man, it was brutal.
[01:32:59] Absolutely brutal.
[01:33:00] I remember hearing a story about this woman from Columbus who they had lost.
[01:33:08] I think it was over 20, it was around 22 Marines from Leema 325 during that deployment.
[01:33:13] And she decided to paint these beautiful murals at murals of each one.
[01:33:18] They were so nice at the Marine Corps Museum for a while, put them right in their foyer.
[01:33:23] They just heard you walk into the museum there, they were in their big.
[01:33:27] I remember hearing a story and then I was doing a shoot with the UFC in the Marine Corps.
[01:33:33] When the Marine Corps is advertising with the UFC and part of the shoot was going to be us as fighters.
[01:33:38] And then with the Marines going to the Marine Corps Museum.
[01:33:40] I was both sides of the fence and we walked in and they were there.
[01:33:45] And I didn't know I didn't expect it.
[01:33:48] And it was really tough because here I am, you know, I'm around these Marines and I'm around, you know,
[01:33:52] some of my buddies shot at it and it's four-ish Griffin were there.
[01:33:55] And as soon as I walked in, man, my eyes filled up with tears.
[01:33:59] You know, getting up to meet some of these men very briefly then we set off and go.
[01:34:05] And because of my relationship with Gabe Diana, who was my mentor at the time and knowing what he went through that day,
[01:34:11] childhood brothers of his and him also being helpless.
[01:34:16] And nothing's fair in combat.
[01:34:19] We know that.
[01:34:20] Nothing's fair.
[01:34:21] And you don't have the choice again.
[01:34:23] You don't have the choice.
[01:34:24] That gets cleared on.
[01:34:25] That force continues to push west so that we can finish the mission of this operation.
[01:34:29] We got a continuing providing our blocking position.
[01:34:31] And that's it.
[01:34:32] If you lose focus, more of that's going to happen.
[01:34:36] It's a difficult thing to deal with, but that's what we signed up to do.
[01:34:41] That that's why we have an all-volunteer force and it's the greatest military force this world has ever seen.
[01:34:46] And it's unfortunate, but part of it is dying.
[01:34:49] We die in battle.
[01:34:50] So that the innocent people here that live in America don't.
[01:34:53] And it sucks and it's painful.
[01:34:55] But at the end of the day, we all, we know.
[01:34:57] When we sign up, we know that that is a possibility.
[01:35:00] It is indeed.
[01:35:03] Now, you had nine guys wounded from your pull-toon.
[01:35:07] Is that right?
[01:35:09] From that whole deployment?
[01:35:11] From that couple days.
[01:35:14] Okay, yes.
[01:35:15] Here we go.
[01:35:16] Nine men in a week.
[01:35:17] I'll go to the book.
[01:35:18] But some of the more of the reservist tankers that weren't technically mine.
[01:35:21] The loss of so many Marines under my command had eaten away at me.
[01:35:29] Almost to the point where I suffered a crisis in confidence.
[01:35:32] Nine men in a week of combat.
[01:35:34] What had I done wrong?
[01:35:35] What had I done wrong?
[01:35:37] What lessons could I learn?
[01:35:39] My mind obsessed over those questions.
[01:35:42] Inside the COC, I braised for the shitstorm.
[01:35:47] Captain Ford Phillips, my company commander spotted me as I came through the door.
[01:35:52] He swiftly took me aside.
[01:35:53] Here it comes.
[01:35:54] I thought, Brian, excellent job.
[01:35:57] You did everything right out there.
[01:36:00] Thank you.
[01:36:01] My job almost fell open.
[01:36:04] Those were the last words I had expected to hear.
[01:36:07] I greatly admired Captain Phillips and, in long since learned, he always meant what he said.
[01:36:13] His words were never designed to make someone feel better.
[01:36:16] They were always designed to make a man, a better officer, and a better Marine, always.
[01:36:23] His words ease the pain of the last seven days.
[01:36:26] But to not erase the guilt that I felt, to this day I questioned the decisions I made that night.
[01:36:31] That is the onus of command.
[01:36:33] You always bear the responsibility for those under you.
[01:36:36] When they suffer wounds or are killed by the enemy, it is impossible for an officer not to second guess himself,
[01:36:41] and own part of their suffering or deaths.
[01:36:45] As leaders, we understand control.
[01:36:48] That is where we operate.
[01:36:50] Having it is comfort.
[01:36:52] But combat and the enemy strips that away at times.
[01:36:57] Once the bullets fly and the violent chaos of a firefight, rains, control becomes an illusion.
[01:37:03] A platoon commander cannot determine which enemy bullets will strike what vehicles.
[01:37:08] He cannot select the moment when an insurgent triggers an ID.
[01:37:11] He cannot dictate who survives and who doesn't.
[01:37:16] All he can do is try and fight back to try and demolish the chaos with enough firepower that the enemy
[01:37:22] dies or runs away.
[01:37:24] Almost everything else is beyond the leader's control.
[01:37:29] Those limits of leadership were never drilled into us at the academy.
[01:37:32] When I experienced it for the first time during Operation Madador, I came gradually to understand on an intellectual level.
[01:37:40] But in my heart, I still wonder if I could have done something else that might have saved my Marines from harm.
[01:37:49] I still spend sleepless nights replaying every moment in my head, hoping men like Robert Gas and Jonathan Low can forgive me.
[01:37:59] All part of it, man.
[01:38:04] It's funny you read that passage.
[01:38:07] I was up last night, same thing.
[01:38:09] 245 in the morning and replaying it.
[01:38:13] It's not something I would say, there's a negative aspect.
[01:38:19] People will hear me say that, man, that's bad.
[01:38:22] Post traumatic stress or something.
[01:38:24] No.
[01:38:25] It's me being a human being who cares and wonders.
[01:38:28] And it's hard.
[01:38:29] That's never going to go away.
[01:38:31] And I'll always wonder that.
[01:38:33] Wouldn't it have been a better decision to take a left turn and abort the mission at that point?
[01:38:39] Should I have tried to get back to the bridge?
[01:38:41] Or if I had gone three blocks up maybe there would have been a path we could have found and put her headlights on, there are so many.
[01:38:50] What if so many what if that you go through as leaders?
[01:38:54] And if you try to ignore those times where you spend those sleepless nights and not think through it, I think it makes it worse.
[01:39:03] I think the fact that I'll go through the drill like last night, which is the first time and a long time that I did.
[01:39:08] I think part of it is I knew we'd probably be talking about it.
[01:39:12] I think it's healthy to do that for me at least it has been.
[01:39:16] It's healthy for me to replay that and to understand.
[01:39:19] And you talked about that moment with my company Commander Ford Phillips.
[01:39:23] I remember that conversation.
[01:39:25] And I remember going back at him a little bit and saying, I just thought, I think if I would have done this or done that and he stopped me.
[01:39:32] Brian, listen, you did everything right.
[01:39:36] You did everything that you could do out there and it was, you know, it was definitely what I needed to hear because we still had a long way to go in that deployment.
[01:39:43] And I still had to go do another one.
[01:39:45] It was it was great leadership on his part because it gave me there was no more second guessing at that point.
[01:39:52] You know, because that was not the time to sit there and start to question my decision to my instincts and battle that it served me well up until that point.
[01:40:02] I had a similar conversation as a matter of fact with life.
[01:40:06] So, you know, when Mark Lee got killed, it was Ryan Job who ended up dying as well, but he had been severely wounded.
[01:40:17] And life was down at a combat outpost with his platoon.
[01:40:22] And we got Ryan Job had been casted back out and now the guys are down at this combat outpost.
[01:40:29] And the army who the 137 bulldogs, Bravo Company, who we had amazing relationship with Captain Mike Bama, Maine Gun Mike.
[01:40:40] They were out trying to get after it and they got to a point where they said, hey, we think we know where these guys are.
[01:40:48] That shot Ryan.
[01:40:50] You can you guys help us. I mean, it was like the worst day of fighting and life called me up on the radio and says, hey, I want to go back out.
[01:41:01] They think they know where these guys are.
[01:41:04] I want to go back out and I was like, go, go get some.
[01:41:08] And even out and you know, they were under heavy fire and that's when Mark got killed.
[01:41:13] And you know, life was, you know, he was, you know, the mission gets done and all that, but next day, life comes to me.
[01:41:22] And he says, you know, hey, hey, Jockel, he was tore up, you know, he was tore up his friends.
[01:41:29] His brother was, was dead, his other friend was severely wounded, but what really got to him was Mark because, you know, he made this decision to go back out.
[01:41:39] And he said to me, you know, I just don't know if I, you want to know if I made the right decision.
[01:41:45] And I said to you, I said to him, life, there was no decision to make.
[01:41:53] There was Americans out there fighting in the streets trying to get after these guys that had wounded one of your guys, one of our guys.
[01:42:02] And they thought they knew where he was and they thought you could go and get them.
[01:42:08] There's no decision to make you don't have to have a choice in that situation.
[01:42:11] You do what you do as an American, as a seal, as a frog man.
[01:42:17] There was no decision.
[01:42:19] You did what we do.
[01:42:38] And I think that's something that any leader.
[01:42:41] When you get your young leaders out there, you know, obviously, if they screw something up,
[01:42:47] obviously, that's a different story.
[01:42:49] But, you know, we don't have the luxury of knowing what's going to happen to combat situation.
[01:42:53] There's no crystal ball.
[01:42:55] There's no, you don't know.
[01:42:57] Like what you just said, guys would say that stuff to me sometimes like, you could have gone left to right.
[01:43:01] Oh really?
[01:43:02] Because if you could have gone left, like you just talked about and hit a giant ID and now everyone's dead.
[01:43:06] You could have gone straight and you could have gotten clear.
[01:43:09] You don't know.
[01:43:10] You don't have that luxury in combat.
[01:43:12] You're making decisions based on the information that you have at that time.
[01:43:15] You don't know all this other shit yet.
[01:43:18] If you knew it, obviously, looking back on size 2020, we wouldn't have even gone there in the first place.
[01:43:24] But we don't know that.
[01:43:25] The only way to avoid any risk is not to go.
[01:43:28] It's not to do your job.
[01:43:29] It's to just go ahead and stand up, raise your hand and say, I'm a coward.
[01:43:34] That's how you can avoid these situations.
[01:43:37] But, guys in the Marine Corps, guys in the Seal teams, they don't raise your hand and say that.
[01:43:42] They raise their hand and say, where's the bad guys in the Marine Corps?
[01:43:44] Where's the bad guys?
[01:43:45] We're going to get them.
[01:43:48] And one of the mistakes you can make too is sometimes you want to stop and you want to think about it.
[01:43:53] Sometimes there is no right answer.
[01:43:56] There's a bunch of things you can do.
[01:43:58] There's a bunch of options and whatever one you take in maintain tempo and achieve tempo and stay a step ahead of the enemy is the right one.
[01:44:05] It's how you execute it.
[01:44:07] Either way, you could be going into a bad day, but you better do it your way and on your terms.
[01:44:13] Yeah, one thing that's guaranteed to turn into a bad day is sitting there and not doing nothing.
[01:44:17] Absolutely.
[01:44:18] Because I'll tell you what, if you're not maneuvering, the enemy is maneuvering.
[01:44:20] If you're not maneuvering, the enemy is absolutely maneuvering.
[01:44:23] They're getting you, they're getting a high ground.
[01:44:25] They're doing something.
[01:44:26] So you better just be in action, taking action, make a decision and go.
[01:44:30] Especially in their turf.
[01:44:31] Their turf.
[01:44:32] Their cities, their neighborhoods, they know every corner.
[01:44:36] We're guessing.
[01:44:41] So now you come back.
[01:44:43] You, I'm fast forwarding to where you're now becoming a company.
[01:44:49] Exo.
[01:44:50] I'm going to the book just after we deployed again in 2006.
[01:44:52] I was pulled from weapons company to become executive officer for India company three two Marines.
[01:44:56] It happened so fast.
[01:44:57] I'd have time to get no my new Marines.
[01:44:59] Before we ended up in country again, we deployed to Alombar province to a fob near Habanía.
[01:45:06] And this was cool because you were in Habanía.
[01:45:08] And I was 20 miles away in Ramadi in that summer of 2006.
[01:45:13] Next, my company lost former Marines killed.
[01:45:17] Lance Corporal Don Champ, champ, was our first he was killed by a roadside bomb on the main road running through our area.
[01:45:24] That was the end of August of 2006.
[01:45:26] A month later on the 24th of our company commander sent a platoon out after an insurgent who'd fired a rocket into one of our patrol bases.
[01:45:33] They'd gone out without a special device that blocked incoming cell phone signals and prevented insurgents.
[01:45:37] From remotely detonating IEDs.
[01:45:40] Sure enough, the platoon got hit with a bomb.
[01:45:44] Blue Lance Corporal Renee Martinez 70 meters into the air.
[01:45:49] He died instantly.
[01:45:51] That one really hurt.
[01:45:53] I'd been on the base at the time.
[01:45:55] I took great pride in going out on patrols, not to ride herd on the platoon commanders, but to be there as an additional asset and to share the risks with my Marines.
[01:46:06] This time I'd been tied up and couldn't get out there with the men.
[01:46:10] When I heard it was happening, I grabbed a humvee and race to the scene.
[01:46:13] We carried Renee back to the morgue.
[01:46:16] Inside us to the next to him held his hand and said my goodbyes.
[01:46:22] I will carry the guilt of that day for the rest of my life.
[01:46:27] I should have been out there with that platoon.
[01:46:31] We kept taking casualties that fall.
[01:46:40] Even units just passing through our area got hit.
[01:46:43] One EOD rig got hit with a roadside bomb.
[01:46:46] Though the blast didn't destroy the armored humvee, it set off a couple.
[01:46:50] Foss for us based in Cendor area, Renee's the EOD team had left on the floor of their rig.
[01:46:57] Before we could even get to them, the white hot chemical fired melted them where they sat.
[01:47:04] The site was indescribable.
[01:47:07] After that scene, morale in the company plummeted.
[01:47:11] The men questioned the mission, what was the point?
[01:47:15] We were getting shot at almost every day, going into Havana, the patrol was a daily nightmare of snipers, bombs and ambushes.
[01:47:22] Half the time we couldn't even fire back the rules of engagement were so strict that if civilians were in the area, we could not engage the enemy.
[01:47:29] Since there were almost always civilians in the area, our Marines had to show incredible restraint even as they watched their brothers die.
[01:47:38] So you guys were wrapped that R.E.R.E. was tight.
[01:47:42] It was tough.
[01:47:43] I mean, it was Havana had never been patroled before.
[01:47:47] They had set up patrol bases, but they had never gone out and walked around and they had, you know, the outgoing units said, you don't want to do that.
[01:47:54] You don't want to do that.
[01:47:56] But you had to.
[01:47:57] They only waited to defeat that enemy with the suffocate, the area, and what mattered most of the people.
[01:48:03] If the people trusted us, they would feed us the information to get captured the enemy.
[01:48:07] If the people trusted them, because we wouldn't patrol and we were scared, then they would trust them.
[01:48:12] We wouldn't have to be accomplishing our mission.
[01:48:16] And it was so hard.
[01:48:19] You know, people have this idea that because you were a certain rank everybody's going to listen.
[01:48:25] Or it's a hard core leadership and they're not going to ask questions.
[01:48:30] When I would go patrol based to patrol based and speak to my men and they would ask, why?
[01:48:35] Why should I walk out there tomorrow?
[01:48:38] You know, we don't have CNN and this general or the president talking to us, given us this big, huge hate.
[01:48:45] Here's the ultimate game plan over.
[01:48:47] We don't get any of that.
[01:48:49] My guys were showering once every 17, 18 days.
[01:48:53] That's it.
[01:48:54] We were living amongst the populists, amongst the enemy that was traveling all around the country coming in and attacking us.
[01:49:02] And so it got really difficult, but the one thing that stuck with them, that they could understand that
[01:49:07] they're perspective they got was, hey, look, if you quit on me, that's one less guy to man the post and top of this patrol base to keep this roadway clear.
[01:49:17] That's one less guy, guard a Mikey's flank when you go on patrol and you got three patrols tomorrow.
[01:49:23] We were already so thin at that time, our battle space was way too big for us to truly suffocate it to make sure the enemy couldn't come in in influence.
[01:49:36] Way too big.
[01:49:38] But as we got better, as we secured the area and we focused really on the main supply route and the economic parts of that, the shops.
[01:49:48] If we get you to cure the shops and secure the schools, because the kids couldn't go to school and the kids tried to go to school, I'll kind of kill the teachers.
[01:49:57] So now we secure the area enough that the two schools could open when we were able to do that, then the shops opened up.
[01:50:04] And the people could start living their lives again. That was one of the proudest days of my marine lives when those kids could walk to school again.
[01:50:10] These schools were corners blown up from IEDs, bullet holes, and there were no roofs.
[01:50:16] I mean, they were by our standards in America, you wouldn't be able to fathom with these look like.
[01:50:20] They were basically concrete squares with really bad desks in them. The school supplies they had were given to them from us.
[01:50:30] And so that was a huge win for us and at that time was right around the same time of the surge.
[01:50:36] When the surge took place, what happened was two Iraqi companies pushed west and we were able to take up a quarter of our battle space, which then greatly allowed us now.
[01:50:48] Now we've got enough people. Now we can really influence it.
[01:50:52] What happened were the Iraqi people who he would sit down and have dinner with them and bring them gifts and talk to them.
[01:50:57] I'd have meetings with them at two in the morning when they felt comfortable to speak to me.
[01:51:01] Now they're telling me who, where, what time, where can we get them?
[01:51:07] And when you've got marine's question, the mission, and all of a sudden you deliver them some intel.
[01:51:11] And say hey at 3am, you're going to go find this person at this spot.
[01:51:14] This is what they look like, this is what they're called, get them.
[01:51:17] And then they get excited.
[01:51:19] And I don't mean get them as in terms of hey, they're going to go and they're going to go kill that person.
[01:51:25] They're going to go capture them and we had a whole process.
[01:51:28] That whole very frustrating, but you had to literally now, now I'm regional on our country.
[01:51:33] And now they're also detectives.
[01:51:35] Alright, so this is the intel package that led to this detention.
[01:51:38] Here's the paperwork for the detention.
[01:51:40] We delivered them to the detention center.
[01:51:42] If you don't hit every wicket right, that person's back on the streets in three days.
[01:51:46] So that was also detailed discipline in doing all the right things, but they did it.
[01:51:51] And I tell you, Ramadi Habaniah, they were some of the worst areas that I racked that fall.
[01:51:58] By Christmas time, he was amazing the turn of it.
[01:52:01] They were quiet.
[01:52:03] They were quiet.
[01:52:04] It was, it was, you know, I left October 21st, 2006.
[01:52:10] There was 30 to 50 enemy attacks a day while I was in deployment that six months.
[01:52:14] By January, there was like one or two enemy attacks a day.
[01:52:19] Down from 30 to 50, it was boom.
[01:52:22] It was incredible.
[01:52:23] Incredible.
[01:52:24] Incredible.
[01:52:25] We left in February, February 2007.
[01:52:29] And speaking to common home, third battalion, second Marines came home in 2007 after suffering
[01:52:37] 15 killed in action.
[01:52:38] It could have been far worse for all of us if we hadn't seen any progress in harmony.
[01:52:44] That's what you're talking about.
[01:52:45] Then all those questions we had over the mission and its value would have returned home to term
[01:52:49] A torment us for years to come.
[01:52:51] In fact, we did see progress and that made it a little easier to accept things.
[01:53:00] And yeah, that's basically what you just said.
[01:53:05] And that's why you and I were talking about this on the way over as nice as it was that we got to see that happen.
[01:53:12] It was nothing more sickening to me than to have eight years later have the black flag of ISIS flying over the city of
[01:53:21] Romadi at the government center that it was just absolutely heinous to see that.
[01:53:26] It didn't need to happen.
[01:53:28] And you know, they actually took Romadi back again through massive air strike.
[01:53:35] And I was talking to one of my buddies that that was a J-TAC that's actually coming on the podcast.
[01:53:39] I was talking to you about earlier, but he's I was like, how many bombs did we drop in Romadi while we were there?
[01:53:47] Because it was a populist city.
[01:53:49] There was normal Iraqis that won the live their lives.
[01:53:52] We were dropping bombs.
[01:53:53] He was like, I don't know, maybe it doesn't 15.
[01:53:56] In the second portion of the money that the Iraqis just did behind the strength of American firepower.
[01:54:02] You know how many air missions they did?
[01:54:04] They did 600 strike missions.
[01:54:07] And you see pictures of Romadi right now?
[01:54:10] It's rubble.
[01:54:11] Now they're rebuilding it now, but it was just just rubble.
[01:54:15] And yeah, it's just, it's so disheartening.
[01:54:20] So you come home from that deployment and it's pretty quickly after you got home that Travis got killed.
[01:54:31] And you know, I wanted to give a little credit here to the mid teams because Travis was a mid team which is military transition team, which was okay.
[01:54:41] So I talk about this sometimes, right?
[01:54:43] So the seals and the special operations guys a lot of times we live in relative comfort.
[01:54:49] Okay, so we live like, okay, we're pretty comfortable.
[01:54:52] You know, like I said, I had mats on deployment.
[01:54:54] I brought a GP medium tent to put mats in because I got to train some J-Jets.
[01:54:59] We have a nice weight room, you know, we and seals are super aggressive and crafty and figure out like, okay, what can we do?
[01:55:05] How can we get this?
[01:55:06] Well, contractors and order and stuff.
[01:55:08] And so we just make we do a good job of building our infrastructure.
[01:55:12] And when I say infrastructure, I mean some comforts come with that, right?
[01:55:16] Now you go to the conventional, check a step down because they're not getting as much leeway.
[01:55:20] They don't have as much, they can't get away with as much.
[01:55:23] So they're living maybe a little bit harder, maybe even a lot harder than, and of course, a little bit more.
[01:55:28] And of course, a, by the way, there's special operations guys that are living out in the sticks and Afghanistan with two of them with, you know, 280 tribesmen.
[01:55:36] So I'm saying, I'm talking about my particular situation, which my particular situation was, in Iraq when I deployed there, we always lived good.
[01:55:43] Always lived good.
[01:55:45] Conventionals, we'd go out to their outstations, we'd stop on a way to a mission, we'd stop by someone, you know, stop by wherever,
[01:55:51] wherever, some cops somewhere or some fobs somewhere, those guys are living rough. And I had seals, my seals that lived in correct order, they were living rough.
[01:55:59] But my point is, you go one step further, and now you get to what's called a mid team.
[01:56:05] And the mid teams are embedded with Iraqi troops.
[01:56:10] And so they are living with Iraqi troops, there might be two, three, maybe four of them, and they're out there, living with their Iraqi troops.
[01:56:18] Counting on the security of the Iraqi forces to protect them.
[01:56:22] And I mean, it was horrible. When we first got to a body, there was a, there was a VBI-D attack that killed the oncoming mid team commander and the outgoing mid team commander.
[01:56:34] They're doing a turnover at a station and VBI-D came killed them both wounded a bunch, but it's interesting because I didn't know Travis was a supply officer in the free corps.
[01:56:46] And so the Marine Corps has this way of selecting where you, where you get what you get to be in the Marine Corps as an officer, they take the class and chunk it up in a thirds.
[01:56:55] And then the, the each top third, you get a pick and it goes down the list.
[01:57:00] So that way they don't have every single guy at all the best guy is quote unquote going to be Marine Corps.
[01:57:06] And if you're going to be a pilot, you, you might be the bottom, the top of the bottom third in the class and you get your pick.
[01:57:12] So you don't, it doesn't matter how you perform. I mean it matters, but out of a class of over 200, Travis was 17 in his class at the Basics School, which is a very prestigious, to graduate, the top 25 is incredible.
[01:57:26] And he got his third choice. His third is a logistics officer. He was furious.
[01:57:31] So he's angry. And then, and the Marine Corps did this very, very well.
[01:57:37] They understood the importance of the mid team, so they really took great guys and send them to the mid teams.
[01:57:42] And he, so they, they put up volunteers. Hey, who wants, who wants to raise your hand and go live amongst the Iraqis, counting on them for security training them, working with them, eating their crappy food, living without air conditioning.
[01:57:58] It just sucks. It's just sucks. It's awful.
[01:58:00] Of course, what does Travis do? Well, I'm game. Oh, yeah. Let's do this.
[01:58:04] So he went, and obviously, he was, he was, he was killed in action. He was killed in action during a firefight trying to, like, you just talked about.
[01:58:15] Wasn't trying to save other Marines. He was trying to save his fellow Iraqi soldiers.
[01:58:21] And just like you just said, there's so many people that don't understand how closely we worked with Iraqi soldiers and how committed we were with helping them.
[01:58:32] So that's a classic example.
[01:58:35] And by the way, that that, that ulogy that he wrote for himself was this.
[01:58:45] Travis, man, was a man on a freed to stand for what was right.
[01:58:53] I think that's something that anybody could aspire towards.
[01:59:04] And actually another, you know, you talked about the connections earlier. Well, there's a connection here that Travis's roommate in the Naval Academy was a guy by the name of Brendan Looney who,
[01:59:20] did what you talked about the painful way of getting to the seal-tams he went to the surface warfare community. Then he got picked up for the seal teams went through seal training.
[01:59:29] And he was also killed in Afghanistan in 21 September 2010.
[01:59:37] But you come home from that deployment. And now you've got your married.
[01:59:43] You got one daughter, you're expecting another daughter. And by the way, this whole time like we talked about earlier, you've been fighting MMA.
[01:59:49] You fought your first profile was between deployments.
[01:59:55] Yeah. And your amateur fights we were going to talk about was before your first deployment. And you make a decision that you're going to get out of the Marine Corps.
[02:00:04] And obviously this is probably the hardest decision you ever had to make of you at that point.
[02:00:10] But it's 2007. How much are you thinking at that time like, I'm going to go for this MMA thing? It's going to be, I got a shot at the making it.
[02:00:22] You know, it was, it was, I knew I had a shot at it.
[02:00:25] You must have thought you had a shot because your ass was undefeated at this point. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, of course.
[02:00:31] It was the man. The worst thing that could have happened, right? I mean, the worst thing. I'm training with, so I would basically go around the base.
[02:00:38] And I found this corpsman with cauliflower here. Hey, how'd you get that cauliflower?
[02:00:43] Stay champ at Oklahoma Wrestling in high school. Oh, be here. 1800 every night. Got it. All bring you gear. Cool. He was in.
[02:00:51] And he then started training with the started fighting, but that got a wrestler dude.
[02:00:55] No, right? Another key to wrestle. Hey, you do your blue belt and your jitsu, your my instructor master.
[02:01:01] He was my master. I had no striking coach. He had no padwork, no nothing. It was me and a couple of Marines plus a corpsman.
[02:01:11] And we would get after every day. And then every time we fought, we won. So we thought we really knew what we were doing.
[02:01:19] And I would take leave every once in a while. I'd take leave and I would go to extreme contour for a couple of days and get destroyed. I went out to Temeculate, Dan Henderson's place.
[02:01:28] I'd go get destroyed. And I'd just try and learn two moves, right? Give me two moves. So here I'm in the WEC again.
[02:01:36] Arm bar from the mouth, arm bar from the guard got those. I know what half guard is now. Can't sweep a soul from it though.
[02:01:44] But Mola Wall showed me how to defend a single leg in a double leg when I was out of Temeculate. So now I got that down path.
[02:01:52] And I still got a mean jab cross. Oh, wait, we go, baby. And I'm winning fights with these things. And you know, I would end up losing the first time at WEC. And that would prompt me to leave Georgia, go find some of the train.
[02:02:08] And I'll never forget my first training session at Jackson, Winkle, John Academy. And I'm there training and Greg Jackson comes walking up to me for my first practice.
[02:02:18] And this is as polite as he could try to compliment me the time. Brian, I am so amazed at how far you've gone with how little information.
[02:02:26] Think again.
[02:02:28] Come on, where?
[02:02:29] Wow, you suck. How the hell did you win all these fights?
[02:02:34] You're so... One of the things I explained, I said, look, when you only know so much, you can fight 150 miles an hour.
[02:02:43] Because you're not thinking. Then all of a sudden I'm learning all these new techniques. Then I started thinking. I had an up and down period there where when some lose some.
[02:02:52] And I got to a point where after the Phil Davis fight, hey, you may be out of here. You know, the UFC wasn't a huge fan of me. They didn't really care.
[02:03:00] They didn't, you know, Joe Sylvester and a huge fan of these WEC guys that were forced upon on that wasn't that talent. He went and found it.
[02:03:06] And I told my I'd fought three times inside of six months and I said, look, I need a break. And I literally looked at my MMA training like you would look at the training of a Marine company.
[02:03:18] Where am I weak? How much time do I have? What am I going to schedule? What am I going to do? Who are the experts I can go to to get better in all these areas?
[02:03:27] And I approached the I knew at that point, hey, look, I still have a full time job. I never fought without one transition on the Marine Corps started working at a company called Met assets.
[02:03:36] Met assets had this this project, this thing. A higher heroes want to help Vets get jobs who maybe you could lead that took that over. So I'm working every day, but at the same time, you know, I started this thing in MMA. I can't go out like this.
[02:03:51] Too many people said I was going to wash out that I was going to be exposed couldn't do it. No way. There were too many Marines at the time taking pride in my performances in there.
[02:04:01] And all the while I was older, yeah, I'm 20 probably 29 at that time. So in terms of MMA age, I'm already, yeah, I'm green and I'm already kind of getting a little old, but I started to find a way started to figure it out.
[02:04:13] And in not cutting any corners like other fighters were at the time, but starting to figure it out and it all just came down to discipline where a lot of martial artists don't want to spend time.
[02:04:24] They don't want to spend 30 minutes drilling one move.
[02:04:28] And understanding how they could use that move from various positions and why it works and how it plays into my style of fighting, why it will be effective.
[02:04:37] They want to drill that one move. They want to do it five times and then they want to go live. Let's go live. Let's go live.
[02:04:44] You know, yeah, and I had learned at that point, if I'm going to catch up with these fighters who are younger, in many cases, but much more experience in me, I have got.
[02:04:56] I've got to take an analytical approach in an honest approach to my skill set and start to show up some holes. I'm in a continued to leave this practice just wrestling like crazy and then submission avoidance.
[02:05:08] It was, it was, I actually went and put a gion for the first time ever. It was, it's working some basics because everyone to hold me down.
[02:05:15] If I could get out from underneath somebody with a gion, it's going to heck of a lot easier, no geek truth.
[02:05:19] I was bringing in wrestlers that were way above my level, a guy named Harry Lester who was, you know, Olympian was coming in and throwing me all over the place.
[02:05:28] And so I was training wrestling nonstop. And then I would go and I'd go to Albuquerque and I'd never fight coming up, but I would go live in Albuquerque for two weeks at a time away from my family and help other guys and their training camps and get exposed and drill.
[02:05:42] And without, here's the other big part was guys like Rashad Evans, Keats Jardine, Joey Vias in your Nate Mark court without those guys. It would have never happened because after they would beat me. After they would pass my guard, take me down. Hit me with this combination.
[02:05:58] They would stop afterwards and tell me how and why.
[02:06:01] And so I learned at a much faster rate than your typical fighter would because not only am I, I'm drilling with some of the best in the world, taking the time to drill and taking analytical approach. Hey, I know we're going to work this today coach, but my butterfly guard is completely ineffective and I'd love to work it specifically, not just on sweeping because I don't think I'm going to get there again against my level of competition to get up.
[02:06:23] I'd love to use it to get up or even just get to the fence where now I've got a third leg that I could utilize to get back up. And so we would drill specifics like that.
[02:06:33] And I've got these guys who have 30 plus fights who are champions now taking the time to help me, which meant a lot to me. I'll never forget it. I mean, they were as much coaches to me as Mike Quinkle John and Greg Jackson were.
[02:06:48] And then, obviously on top, you could do all of that. The other piece that was when I would do my campsit when I really got where I was at my best, when I'd be Chris Lee, Benz, or Santiago, let's see, when I was beating those guys mentally, I was in the best place.
[02:07:03] My family was in a great spot. They were my wife and kids were very supportive of me leaving and doing my camps in Albuquerque, my time away from them. It made me nasty.
[02:07:14] They'd come visit, but man, I would literally look at my opponent like, you're the one who kept me away from my family this long. You're going to pay for it.
[02:07:22] And it was a strong motivator. And if you're in a place to fight or where you're not hungry, getting new information, being able to mentally be in the right place for you to perform.
[02:07:35] It's not about who the better fighter is. It is nothing to do it. It's about who fights best that night. And if you can't mentally be in the state where you're going to fight best that night, you got a problem and you're in the wrong place.
[02:07:46] And that phase of my career, that's when I was there, was able to do that. And that was that was when I was at my best for sure.
[02:07:54] You had some stunning fights. I always tell, you know, sometimes my fighters will say, oh, you know, I'm not feeling it. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You have, like this is in training. I'll say, look, it doesn't matter how you feel tonight.
[02:08:06] Because fight night come, you might be feeling good, bad doesn't matter. What you have to do is perform right now. That's what you got to do. So train yourself to perform right now.
[02:08:14] But yeah, you had some great fights and Chris leave and I know train with Chris a great guy and that and he's such a tough bastard. And you guys grew down.
[02:08:29] Yeah, we knew we knew neither one of us were going to be that hard to hit.
[02:08:33] But no, tons of respect for that guy. And that was a fight to do enough to take. You know, I saw an opening there where there was a window and he made just take me as a fight to okay, let me go get a win get some money.
[02:08:48] And go on because he had just come off two huge wins and like a week or 10 days. No cycle. And so phenomenal guy in this sport.
[02:08:58] And yeah, you know, it was a wild ride. And when I look back on it, there's definitely some regrets like anybody. There's some things you wish you wish you could have done.
[02:09:08] Some things that happened family wise that certainly stalled and helped aid the decision to stop.
[02:09:16] My wife losing losing her little brother to suicide was a really tough thing. Her mom was living with us at the time. So, you know, us going through that tragedy together. It's hard.
[02:09:24] We were human beings and a lot of fighters of the deal of tragedy and compete. It's what we do for living. We've got to fight through it. It's a hard thing. When I look back on it, where I know I was as an athlete.
[02:09:35] And as a mixed martial arts, how green I was to have come that far and been a legitimate top 10 middleweight at that time. I'm proud of that, especially in the era, especially in the era when I fought where there were some extra clicker activity for going on.
[02:09:50] You're fine against guys that were a lot of guys were on, we're on steroids. There was no testing or that was really limited testing.
[02:09:56] It was an IQ test, right? If you fail that, you're just straight up dumb.
[02:10:01] But it was fun.
[02:10:03] I mean, the guys you lost a jail son, right? Who was two minutes from being the middleweight champion in the world against Anderson Silva?
[02:10:13] You lost to him, you beat Sikara, then you lost to Bizbeng, who actually is the current middleweight champion. So in the guys that beat you were bad asses.
[02:10:23] Yeah, absolutely. And you were a guy that was like started fighting three weeks ago.
[02:10:28] That's just awesome, man. It's a test of it.
[02:10:31] The coolest part about it was during that time, and it kind of happened subtly beneath that, at least to the fight fans, was taking that little higher here.
[02:10:42] That little higher here as USA project, that that company met asses asked me to watch over, right?
[02:10:47] Step one was, with certain to build some programs.
[02:10:51] Step two was getting one of my best friends in the world who served with me, who was right next to that track as it burned.
[02:10:57] Nate Smith, the come in, be my chief operating officer and build this amazing team and leveraging some of the media attention I got for fighting, leveraging it for our cause in building it.
[02:11:09] And not just building a company where hey, we went out, we fundraised for our mission. No, that's bogus.
[02:11:14] We were out there accomplishing the mission, helping veterans get legitimate jobs, careers, so that they can succeed and lead again, back here, home and in their communities,
[02:11:28] and watching it grow from a team of five to a team of ten to a team of twenty to our now we've got ninety six full time employees.
[02:11:36] And we're bringing in over three hundred veterans and spouses a week into the programs.
[02:11:41] That was all built with this amazing team of people while I was still fighting.
[02:11:47] That was my full time job doing that and having a board of directors that had the foresight and the perspective to say, hey, you know what?
[02:11:57] Yes, you're going to be a little limited during some of these training camps, but what you're able to bring to our brand is helpful right now in the future.
[02:12:05] Right now in the phase that this company is and it's been a wild and really amazing ride and some of the things we talked about earlier, where you have these things, these questions that will always haunt you about the loss of your friends, the loss of your dreams, the loss of your seals.
[02:12:22] When you can lead an initiative like that, it helps you feel like, hey, you know what I am? I am taking advantage of every day.
[02:12:29] Every day we're moving forward, we're achieving, we're helping other warriors now find success post military service.
[02:12:36] And that's me earning it, my earning my day where they don't live a longer having, you know, Travis made into the living more.
[02:12:43] And his family would give anything to see him one more time. I can't bring him back.
[02:12:48] But I'll tell you what if I sat here crying about it, feeling sorry for myself that my friend Travis was gone, he'd be the first to slap the hell out of me when I die for her.
[02:12:58] Or at least do a double leg on your ass.
[02:13:00] He was, I'm telling you, man, that that was he planned on fighting when he got done that.
[02:13:05] He'd still be fighting this day. He was a bad bad dude.
[02:13:10] And that was your last fight in the UFC and he retired after you fought Mandalay Silva, which did you plan?
[02:13:19] No.
[02:13:20] To do that. So those of you that don't know that aren't an MMA.
[02:13:23] There's a guy, a legendary, mixed martial artist named Van Delay Silva.
[02:13:28] I saw him fight a few times in Japan back in the back in the day.
[02:13:32] And he's a brawl. And he's incredible punching power.
[02:13:37] And his nickname is the Axe Mergera because he looks like a psycho.
[02:13:41] And anyways, Brian had a fight with him.
[02:13:45] And these two guys went in there. It was like Russian roulette.
[02:13:50] He was a street fight. And eventually you got caught.
[02:13:55] You know, got caught by one of the best strikers that have ever been in the game.
[02:13:58] And by the way, you dropped him a couple times.
[02:14:04] You had that. You had it one.
[02:14:06] But you definitely, you dropped him two or three times in the first round or twice in the first round.
[02:14:11] He went back from the dead.
[02:14:12] Yeah.
[02:14:13] A minimum of two times.
[02:14:14] The eyes were in the back of his head.
[02:14:16] And then he just looked at me again with bloodshot eyes.
[02:14:19] It was it was unbelievable unbelievable.
[02:14:22] But no, that was not the plan.
[02:14:24] And so the you were with Greg Jackson and we great.
[02:14:29] I wasn't.
[02:14:30] I so for the the out so cara bis being and van der Leif fight, I trained myself.
[02:14:36] And the reason being was right after I had fought Chelsea on in two days before Christmas,
[02:14:42] me and my wife. Land and baggage claim. And I get a call.
[02:14:45] And in her little brother, who had struggled with bipolar disorder and depression.
[02:14:50] And we didn't know that that right.
[02:14:52] He had taken his own life went up to a cabin mill the woods and taken his own life and
[02:14:56] had it tell my wife their baggage claim.
[02:14:58] And her mom at the time was living with the, it was personal life was a mess.
[02:15:03] Still got to pay bills though.
[02:15:04] Right. Still got to company to run.
[02:15:06] So I got to fight career that I've got to push through and I can't just hey, look,
[02:15:09] I'm going to take seven months off here to get through this because I got bills to pay.
[02:15:13] Anyways, it it caused me to start my own camp.
[02:15:16] So that the game plan going in was hey, we're going to take van der Leif down a little bit
[02:15:21] in this fight and disrupt him.
[02:15:23] Really, really confuse him because nobody's nobody's used to me doing that.
[02:15:27] Yeah.
[02:15:28] And so I fly to Japan.
[02:15:30] We get off the plane if that long flight after a long training camp where I absolutely
[02:15:35] over trained.
[02:15:36] And we get to the hotel and and and me and one of my striking coaches,
[02:15:40] the top we go start hitting pads, we're hitting pads.
[02:15:43] It pad works down in all man.
[02:15:44] All of a sudden I start to cool down.
[02:15:46] I can't lift my knee up in my left leg.
[02:15:49] Tears something in my head.
[02:15:50] And it happens.
[02:15:52] I mean, van der Leick could have walked in there with how many miles he could have walked in a couple
[02:15:55] of injuries.
[02:15:56] So anyways, now this gets into my head a little bit.
[02:15:59] And so I asked to see the UFC doctor.
[02:16:02] And so as soon as he landed he was told that you got to go see Brian's status.
[02:16:06] Hey, look, I've looked at all the stuff.
[02:16:08] No vacay in his legal. I just want to get no vacay for fight night so I won't feel it.
[02:16:13] And I'm walking around the hotel and I'm trying not to show anybody that I'm limping at the press conference.
[02:16:17] Cause I have a legitimate limp.
[02:16:19] And anyways, he's like, okay, we should but we're in Japan.
[02:16:22] We're not in the second or third of a country.
[02:16:24] We're in Tokyo, right?
[02:16:25] I could have walked across the street probably gotten light a cane.
[02:16:27] Anyways, suppose to get it, suppose to get it, suppose to get it, I'm going to get it.
[02:16:30] I'm going to get it.
[02:16:30] I'm going to get it.
[02:16:31] It doesn't get it.
[02:16:32] When you fight in Japan, the fights so that they could cater the American TV.
[02:16:35] It's like 70 am. So he's sitting there sorry.
[02:16:39] So I let that affect me too much mentally.
[02:16:42] And we're trying to warm up backstage and I'm trying to shoot some double eggs and I'm not feeling it.
[02:16:47] And in my own head, we're walking, like you know what?
[02:16:50] This dude's got some miles on him.
[02:16:52] I hit like a truck.
[02:16:53] Let's get in there.
[02:16:55] Let's knock this dude out and let's get this fight over with.
[02:16:58] So ready to go walk out there and he tags me first.
[02:17:03] He hits me behind the ear and you know most of Vandalace fights.
[02:17:07] He's a little bit more of an accumulation guy.
[02:17:09] He's not considered a one punch knock off guy.
[02:17:11] This one right hand he hits me with.
[02:17:13] I had never been rocked in the knock down before my life.
[02:17:16] And he dropped me.
[02:17:17] So he's like, all right, it's on.
[02:17:19] Let's go.
[02:17:20] And so then I rock him.
[02:17:21] And once I rocked him, I thought, okay,
[02:17:23] one more good shot on the chin and he's done.
[02:17:27] And I landed it and he'd go down and then he come back.
[02:17:31] And I'm just caught up and so the second round I start to get a little bit more technical and move around a little bit.
[02:17:37] Like, all right, he's obviously not going away.
[02:17:39] I've got to take a different approach.
[02:17:41] I don't know what this guy's made of.
[02:17:43] And then he, I didn't even, I don't remember.
[02:17:45] You know, I caught with that huge punch.
[02:17:47] Don't remember any of it.
[02:17:49] And it's crazy, but I realized I lost.
[02:17:52] I came to as John Annick, who's one of my closest friends.
[02:17:57] Now comes up to with a microphone.
[02:17:59] And I realized, well, I don't remember winning.
[02:18:02] So I'm much less flied.
[02:18:05] And it was a horrible flight home.
[02:18:07] I'm sitting there flying home.
[02:18:10] And I had a jack and coke in my hand.
[02:18:13] Couldn't sleep at all.
[02:18:14] Didn't sleep.
[02:18:15] And I am miserable.
[02:18:17] I lost to a guy I was supposed to be.
[02:18:19] Who's supposed to be washed up.
[02:18:21] You know, I had pretty much made the decision.
[02:18:23] Then, you know, I'm out.
[02:18:25] It's over.
[02:18:26] If you're not going to get busy being the champion,
[02:18:28] there's other areas where that need my attention more from my family to the company.
[02:18:33] I'm trying to run.
[02:18:34] It was a hard decision.
[02:18:35] And in part of me when I made the decision thought for sure,
[02:18:38] I'm definitely going to come back, right?
[02:18:40] I'm going to come back.
[02:18:41] And for like two years, I held onto that and had to fight against it.
[02:18:44] Like, no, it is not in your best interest to come back anymore.
[02:18:47] It's in your, you do a better job talking about the microphone.
[02:18:50] And then you're going to do strap.
[02:18:51] And it gloves on anymore.
[02:18:52] You're 35, now I'm 36.
[02:18:54] It's over.
[02:18:55] That makes me feel real good over here.
[02:18:57] So, you know, we've been going for a while.
[02:19:02] Tell us about like specifically with with higher heroes.
[02:19:06] What, how can people support that?
[02:19:08] What do we look for it?
[02:19:09] All that stuff.
[02:19:10] So that way people have information on it.
[02:19:11] Yes, we've got a website higher heroes USA.org.
[02:19:15] And if you are a service member or spouse who need to help finding a career
[02:19:19] if you're unemployed or under employed, you go on there,
[02:19:22] you're registered and we'll get you your personal veteran transition specialist.
[02:19:26] Fancy term for a job coach.
[02:19:28] And we'll take you through the whole thing from revising your resume
[02:19:31] to teach how to effectively do a job search,
[02:19:34] how to interview for a job.
[02:19:35] We will help you if not build your LinkedIn site for you.
[02:19:38] Teach you how to use that to impact and expand your network.
[02:19:42] Do social media audits.
[02:19:43] Hey, what pictures and posts,
[02:19:45] is you not have up on Facebook right now?
[02:19:47] You know, take a look at no big pop of pump at Yahoo is not your email anymore.
[02:19:51] It's going to be Christina Smith at Yahoo.com.
[02:19:54] All the dudes that don't.
[02:19:57] But then we have a job where a lot of corporate partners will match you to all those companies.
[02:20:00] So people, if people want a higher a veteran,
[02:20:04] they can go through you as well.
[02:20:06] Because that's the one thing I get hit with a lot is,
[02:20:08] you know, people say, how can we help veterans?
[02:20:10] And I say higher veterans.
[02:20:11] And they say, where do we find them?
[02:20:12] So now we've got a good place to have.
[02:20:13] Absolutely.
[02:20:14] When we were bringing it over 300 people a week in the program,
[02:20:17] we're all going to get one on one assistance and different from any other nonprofit.
[02:20:21] Everything we do is track, logged and analyzed and sales force.
[02:20:25] So that we can hold ourselves accountable.
[02:20:27] I can hold every one of my employees accountable for the workload they have.
[02:20:31] They all have weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual metrics that they have to hit.
[02:20:35] They don't hit them.
[02:20:36] They no longer work here.
[02:20:38] We run this nonprofit like a business because people don't
[02:20:41] make money to us to help veterans find careers.
[02:20:43] Period.
[02:20:44] And if we're not doing that, then we go away.
[02:20:46] And I take that very serious,
[02:20:48] and it's what's allowed us to grow from a team of four to now a team of 96.
[02:20:53] It will continue to do so.
[02:20:55] And my main mission now is to make sure higher here as you say is there for the next generation of combat veterans as well.
[02:21:00] When they return home to a society that doesn't understand them as much.
[02:21:04] And in the real help, the real need is for the veteran to learn how to communicate their skills at how to deliver their value proposition.
[02:21:13] It's a hard thing to do.
[02:21:14] Think about your seals when they got out.
[02:21:16] If they went to a job or try to write a resume, what the hell do I put?
[02:21:19] My first resume looked like I was trying to get a job as a mercenary.
[02:21:22] Me was off.
[02:21:23] And I was in Naval Academy, I'm a man.
[02:21:25] Imagine these young sailors, you know?
[02:21:28] Yeah.
[02:21:28] And over 80% of the people we help at higher here are your young and listed service members.
[02:21:33] The ones who need us the most.
[02:21:34] Awesome.
[02:21:35] Awesome.
[02:21:36] And then you got the Guardian project going on.
[02:21:39] Incredible project.
[02:21:40] And I'd love to to get these guys down.
[02:21:43] Ben Covax who's our executive director come down and be on your show someday.
[02:21:47] It's it's so in line with some of your beliefs on martial arts and you jits you.
[02:21:51] Ben has a vision that every kid should have the opportunity to train martial arts.
[02:21:56] Every child.
[02:21:57] Yeah.
[02:21:58] And so he went out, networked and found a man by the name of Joel on in Feld.
[02:22:03] Who's on my board at higher heroes who's an executive at Twitter.
[02:22:06] And they bought a property in Oakland where there are a lot of young men and women who don't have much going on after school.
[02:22:12] And they don't they the chips are stacked against them.
[02:22:15] There's not a whole lot that they have.
[02:22:17] You know, they're families of a hard time making money and there's a lot of children get into.
[02:22:21] And they go find them and they bring them in and they come.
[02:22:24] They train martial arts.
[02:22:25] They train jitzu.
[02:22:26] They train boxing.
[02:22:27] They do their homework.
[02:22:28] And then they have networked with local restaurants and they get a healthy meal afterwards for free.
[02:22:33] In many cases, these are the health the only healthy meal that that young man or woman's going to get that day.
[02:22:38] They have regular members to the gym, but those members pay a membership fee that also then pays for those young kids that they can come for free.
[02:22:46] People buy a key for themselves.
[02:22:48] Then they get a free key for one of the kids.
[02:22:50] I've gone there and taught and ran some classes and it is just it's incredible to meet these young men and women who haven't been given much in life.
[02:22:59] Their parents are grateful because now they're not paying for after school care.
[02:23:02] They can't afford it anyways and their kids not wander in the streets.
[02:23:04] Right. But now they've got this place to go to where there's like minded people pushing them to do better.
[02:23:11] Don't allow your circumstances to direct and direct your life until you who you're going to be.
[02:23:18] Nothing should hold you back.
[02:23:20] So the discipline that they're learning now, the camaraderie that character they're learning at Guardian, is starting to spill into the other aspects of their life.
[02:23:28] Their grades are going up.
[02:23:30] They're being more nutritious.
[02:23:31] They're focused on their future. They're, hey, wait a minute. College. I can go. I can go to college.
[02:23:36] They've got these great positive inspirations around in the goal is to take Guardian from Oakland and start to to brand it and get it in gyms across the country.
[02:23:45] Where now we don't need a physical facility to do it. And other gyms can take on the program where now we've got a system where they can adopt it.
[02:23:52] And people can pay their membership as part of a way of paying the membership for these under privileged kids to go there and train after school as well.
[02:23:59] So they can have a chance just because their port, as it mean they shouldn't get the opportunity to train you to train boxing, to get all the character development that goes along with martial arts.
[02:24:09] Yeah, that's all I got. I actually, I got another book coming out in the book is called The Way of the War Your Kid and it's a kids book.
[02:24:16] And it's basically about a young kid who's getting picked on at school.
[02:24:20] He can't do any pull-ups. He, he doesn't know his time stables and is basically miserable, right?
[02:24:27] And anyways, school ends and his uncle Jake comes out to stay with him for the summer. Uncle Jake is a team guy.
[02:24:35] So Uncle Jake says, oh, you got some issues. What are the issues? I can't do pull-ups because we can fix all those things.
[02:24:40] So one of the, you know, obviously gets more working out. Oh, you're getting bullied because he's getting bullied badly.
[02:24:46] Well, guess what he's going to learn. He's going to learn.
[02:24:48] You, jitsu. So I honestly think there's going to be a little bit of the surge of jitsu in America.
[02:24:54] I love it. And it's like, this is right up the right up that alley. It is. And you know, when, when that comes out, we're going to grab a bunch of make it mandatory for these kids.
[02:25:03] Things like that inspire them. I mean, they make a difference. When you look at the, just the social, economic impact.
[02:25:08] Young man or woman who has a high likelihood of probably getting arrested, especially when you look at some of the, the problems we have with our criminal justice system, right?
[02:25:18] Now, instead, they have a positive environment. Never get, they go in a college and they go get a great job and they're contributing. They're winning now.
[02:25:24] Huge impact for our country, for our communities to do that and to get more jitsu, more martial arts and some of these, these poor, super rural areas in our country where there's extreme poverty and our super urban areas where there's extreme poverty.
[02:25:39] Where these young men and women don't get that opportunity because their parents can't pay a hundred fifty dollars a month for them to go and they don't have any positive influences in their life.
[02:25:48] Man, that, that, that can fix a lot of problems that we have going on in our country.
[02:25:53] There's no doubt. Does, is there a way to help the Guardian project right now?
[02:25:57] Go to go to GuardianProject.org. There's a website right there. You could become a monthly sponsor. I mean, that organization is, is, is, in startup phase.
[02:26:06] If someone could give five to ten dollars a month to them, that is a huge portion of a young man or woman's monthly membership.
[02:26:14] Right. They have to go to that gym. Get a free meal. Have someone looking at the report card.
[02:26:18] Tutor in the men math. Teach them jitsu. Confidence.
[02:26:22] I mean, we got young ladies in there and, and they're in there. They're confidence when they start dating and who they choose and how that, I mean, the way they're going to approach life.
[02:26:31] These young men in understanding how to respect and train with the young lady. I'm going to grapple with you this round and how to respect you.
[02:26:39] I mean, it's, it's amazing to watch what's happening at a young age and how quickly they're developing it's awesome.
[02:26:45] That's awesome. So higher heroes, the Guardian project, organizations to support.
[02:26:53] And guess that kind of wraps it with us. If anybody wanted to support this podcast echo Charles.
[02:27:02] I have a question. Oh, echo comes with a deep question. Got a question. Kind of deep.
[02:27:07] So when you watch a few good men, are you like on the side of the Marines like the whole week?
[02:27:13] I'm saying don't group me with them just because I wear the same uniform. The, you know, a few good men. He's going against the Navy Tom Cruise and Avie guy.
[02:27:23] You're not a seal, but you know, so I am when I watch a few good men. I am with the Marines all the way up until they break their integrity.
[02:27:31] All right, which is a movie, right? But, but under no circumstances should we break our integrity and that's a problem.
[02:27:38] That's it's so false. No kernel would tell someone one thing then tell this to you and your guy over here. No, you go to this and then lie about it and try and cover up.
[02:27:46] The big cover up. Yeah.
[02:27:47] Good cover up. Remember when they break their integrity, that's I don't care what uniform you're wearing. That's a problem.
[02:27:52] Or if you're not wearing a uniform at all, if we just talked about that on the last podcast, main day in the integrity.
[02:27:59] It's true. Oh, follow up. Question. Is there such thing as a code read?
[02:28:03] No. Okay. There's no such thing.
[02:28:05] Anyway, so support. Right. We can talk about that. If you guys like cool. Yeah. Let's do it.
[02:28:12] Right. All right. Well, uh, and let's do it fast.
[02:28:17] All right. We'll speed it up here. Just talk about on it. Supplements I worked out today.
[02:28:21] Is it probably can tell you the pump is on.
[02:28:24] So on. The name of the pre-workout is total strength and performance.
[02:28:31] I left out the strength in there. Okay. So you perform good any strong. Anyway, if you want 10% off on it stuff,
[02:28:37] true and tech of a brain total strengthening performance, go to on it.
[02:28:42] Come. Crystal.
[02:28:43] Crystal. Crystal. You threatened me with a crilloial rage today. Yeah.
[02:28:46] It's cool. Yeah. Yeah.
[02:28:49] Yeah. So that's another story right there.
[02:28:52] Anyway, on it. Come slash jockel. That's for 10% off. Best supplements in the world approved approved approved approved.
[02:28:58] Um, also if you shop at Amazon.
[02:29:03] By duct tape, whatever, um, or the books that we talk about.
[02:29:09] Hard for the fight. You better order this one.
[02:29:13] Because I don't think it's in print right now. And my mom bought all five copies.
[02:29:19] My mother bought all five copies.
[02:29:21] She must have re-sold that on you.
[02:29:23] She didn't realize she said to you. Yeah. So yeah, both.
[02:29:28] Amazon though. You can buy it. Yeah. And in the event of you doing that or by anything else.
[02:29:34] And you want to support the podcast, by the way. Click through the jockel podcast.com website or
[02:29:39] jockel store website. So click on the little Amazon banner. Boom. Then do your shopping.
[02:29:43] And then get the book or whatever else you get. And you can support that way. That's a good way.
[02:29:49] That's like small action big result. Like sodium in a fish tank is what we say.
[02:29:55] You know, that's what you'll say. We come on. But we say it.
[02:29:59] So good. Anyway, um, and then you know, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and
[02:30:04] Stitcher and Google Play if you haven't already. Seems obvious. But you know, do that if you haven't.
[02:30:08] And then you know, right or review if you're in the mood. And you're in the mood to support podcast.
[02:30:13] Also YouTube. We're putting out more videos now. I noticed that shorter videos.
[02:30:18] Jockel good. That's one of the OG videos. That was a good one. No, by the way.
[02:30:24] I thought that was good. Subscribe. Yeah. YouTube. If you like those videos. If you like little
[02:30:30] Jockel McNuggets rather than the whole podcast. All at once. Sherable. Right.
[02:30:35] I say, Brian stand watch this video real quick. It's two hours long. You're not watching it real quick.
[02:30:40] Three minutes long. You might watch that one real quick. Absolutely. Same thing. Exactly. Right. The same thing.
[02:30:45] So that's what we're doing now if you didn't know. So yeah, subscribe to that. If you want to, um, you know,
[02:30:51] you want to be up there on that also. Jockel is a store. It's called Jockel store.
[02:30:58] Jockel store.com. We think of original names like that. Yeah, simple. But you know, you got a school name like
[02:31:03] Jockel. Why change it up? Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's perfect. And you know, there's some shirts on there. You know,
[02:31:10] you want to kind of get after it that way. Get yourself a shirt. That's kind of, you know, you're wearing shirts anyway. I figure. Right.
[02:31:15] Yeah. Why not wear a Jockel shirt? Right. And so you got to wear one anyway. Exactly.
[02:31:20] I agree with you. I agree with you. Right. And they're good. We kind of went this way. Is this has to be one. This is what he was
[02:31:26] freedom. Yeah. This is a vehicle. So that's an awesome shirt. There you go. See that is an awesome shirt.
[02:31:30] Brian standoff approved. There's a lot of underwear in those shirts. Pretty legit. Yeah. There's an
[02:31:35] awesome shirt. And you know what? You just don't want to wear the shirt. Yeah. You want to go ahead and live the life.
[02:31:41] You've been in every discipline. Yes. You're going to do that. Don't wake up at 10 30 in the morning.
[02:31:45] I roll out of bed on a sedan. Yeah. Go accomplish something. Get in the game. Yep. Very well put. Yes.
[02:31:51] So yeah, check out those shirts. I'm not saying buy a shirt. I'm not sitting here and saying buy a shirt. I'm saying go in. Go on.
[02:31:57] No website. Jockel store.com. Look at the shirts. If you like the shirts. And you want to support the podcast.
[02:32:04] Get a shirt. It's on you. There's some rash guards in there. So you can, you know, some some physical activity grappling surfing.
[02:32:14] Crought anything. You know, anything they do a lot of physical activity. And he written your motion.
[02:32:19] Rashes guards. Good. Good. Patches. Good. Regulation size or not regulations. Good. All good. Anyway.
[02:32:27] And about these mugs. These mugs better be on there. Oh, yeah. The mugs. Unfortunately. I got a bunch of them made and we sold them on Amazon.
[02:32:36] And we had a bunch in stock and then Joe Rogan posted a picture of his and then they were gone. And they're on the same head to be. Yeah. I got more coming.
[02:32:44] Yeah. Yeah.
[02:32:45] The map like early March. I think I a tweet up before we started the show just just show the desk with all the weapons on it. The amount of testosterone in jawline in here is massive.
[02:32:56] We're going to do the softest right now.
[02:33:01] Yeah. But yeah, those I think what March right, too, is like I think early March. I think they'll be a real
[02:33:09] person or something like that. And still work it on the international for the mugs, right?
[02:33:13] Yeah, probably. So thank we're going to make that happen. So stand by for that. Also, okay. Psychological warfare. I like to feel something.
[02:33:21] I don't need this anymore. I'm over it. But if you do need psychological warfare, okay. Here's what it is.
[02:33:28] You ever have those days where you're like, you're about to work out or you plan to work out. And you're like, you know, maybe I'll just work out tomorrow.
[02:33:37] Everybody has you absolutely right. Yes. So what you do is you get this album that we put together. Well, it's a chocolate talk.
[02:33:46] I just kind of recorded it. But like I said echo presses record better than anybody.
[02:33:52] Yeah, it's true. Absolutely.
[02:33:54] But on iTunes, you can get like a track. Like if your thing is like, I eat donuts way too much. And you're like, I'm going to fight the donut or whatever.
[02:34:01] You can just get that track. It's called what sugar coated lies. That's for example.
[02:34:05] It's just Jaco's voice telling you why not eat the donut. Yeah, love this.
[02:34:09] Yeah, I don't actually, you don't need to your voice is so stern and intense.
[02:34:15] It doesn't matter. Absolutely, right? Yeah. It's like Batman. Right? No, I shouldn't bail Batman.
[02:34:21] Don't eat the donut. That's more late.
[02:34:24] Laces Batman, of course. You're kind of like, um, I don't know.
[02:34:28] I don't know. I don't know. Either way, there's a bunch of them know it's cool like that's not wake up in the morning.
[02:34:34] Anyway, it's good, man. It helps. It helps a lot.
[02:34:37] It's been very well received. I think surprisingly. Yeah. I was kind of surprised.
[02:34:41] Yeah. So as Echo thought it was a good idea. You know, man, people need this.
[02:34:45] I'm like, people need two minutes of me talking about donut. I need it. That's what I said.
[02:34:49] To go work out.
[02:34:50] But what's greater than you do and send me in like, there's no way I can sleep through because one of the first track is called
[02:34:57] Wake Up and get after it because I think that really one of the easiest ways to start developing discipline in your life is to wake up early in the morning.
[02:35:05] So the first track is Wake Up and get after it and I actually do it account to 10.
[02:35:09] And then give you the opportunity 10 seconds.
[02:35:11] Fair enough to get out of bed.
[02:35:13] If not out of bed by then we got issues.
[02:35:15] It's fun.
[02:35:21] Anything else?
[02:35:24] Along with that, if you want to get some jockel white tea, yeah, it's available.
[02:35:28] It's available in stock on Amazon.
[02:35:30] And before I was hesitant because at one time I said, hey, we'll never sell out of it again.
[02:35:34] And everybody that listens to this podcast bought it that day.
[02:35:37] We sold out in 10 minutes because we sold out the first time and that's a normal.
[02:35:41] Just going to get a ton.
[02:35:42] I said, don't worry guys. We'll never sell out again.
[02:35:44] Yeah, we sold out again.
[02:35:45] Now I'm feeling pretty confident that we won't sell out again.
[02:35:49] That means I went cut a record.
[02:35:51] That's what I want.
[02:35:52] I over engineered the whole thing.
[02:35:54] So we shouldn't sell out of jockel white tea again.
[02:35:57] You can get it on Amazon.
[02:35:59] .com international orders, check eBay.
[02:36:02] When you're clicking on Amazon, get this book right here by Brian Stan.
[02:36:06] Heart for the fight.
[02:36:08] You heard it talking about it tonight.
[02:36:10] I covered it tiny portion of the book.
[02:36:12] Great information about combat, about leadership and about life.
[02:36:16] Definitely check it out.
[02:36:18] I'll put it on the website.
[02:36:20] Yeah, it'll be on the website.
[02:36:22] It'll be on the website.
[02:36:24] And also, we were just talking about this.
[02:36:26] Got that kids book coming out Uncle Jake teaching young Mark.
[02:36:31] How to be a warrior kid instead of a Wimpy kid.
[02:36:34] Two jitsu.
[02:36:36] Yeah, pull ups.
[02:36:38] Yeah, studying.
[02:36:39] Yes, being disciplined.
[02:36:40] Yes, basically getting after it.
[02:36:42] Affirmative.
[02:36:43] H10.
[02:36:44] Pre-order it now.
[02:36:46] Why not?
[02:36:48] If you like this podcast, 100% you will like this book.
[02:36:52] I don't care if you're 49 years old.
[02:36:54] You will dig this book.
[02:36:55] I dig this book.
[02:36:56] I wrote it.
[02:36:58] And I like it.
[02:36:59] I like to read it.
[02:37:00] My nine-year-old daughter's reading it.
[02:37:02] Oh yeah, yeah, it's good.
[02:37:05] I'll leave it at that.
[02:37:07] And I'm not a person to sit there and say,
[02:37:08] Oh, what I did is really good.
[02:37:10] I don't do that.
[02:37:11] I like this book a lot.
[02:37:13] You did this really good.
[02:37:15] Yeah.
[02:37:16] Also, late for an I wrote that book right there.
[02:37:18] The book called Extreme Ownership.
[02:37:20] You can get it.
[02:37:21] We talk about war.
[02:37:23] And we talk about leadership.
[02:37:25] And we talk about war.
[02:37:26] You know, what else would we talk about?
[02:37:28] If the right one, not one of the spin-offs.
[02:37:30] Yeah, I think.
[02:37:31] All right.
[02:37:32] Lastly, Extreme Ownership Monster.
[02:37:35] May 4th and 5th at the Marriott Markey in New York City.
[02:37:39] Extreme Ownership Monster.
[02:37:40] Number two, by the way.
[02:37:41] Number one already happened in San Diego.
[02:37:43] It was awesome.
[02:37:44] This one's going to be awesome.
[02:37:45] By the way, I'm going to say this yet about Extreme Ownership
[02:37:47] Monster 2.
[02:37:48] We will be there.
[02:37:49] I will be there.
[02:37:51] Echo Charles will be there.
[02:37:53] We will not be backstage.
[02:37:56] We will be there is no backstage.
[02:37:58] We will be upfront.
[02:37:59] I will be sitting at your table.
[02:38:01] We will be talking about things.
[02:38:03] JP Denel is going to be there as well.
[02:38:06] He's going to come and get some.
[02:38:08] So come on out to that May 4th and 5th.
[02:38:10] There's a video coming out about it soon.
[02:38:12] I warned you that when the video comes out,
[02:38:14] it's going to sell out because Echo Charles makes these videos so persuasive.
[02:38:19] That everyone's going to come.
[02:38:22] And while you're waiting for the monster,
[02:38:25] you can still carry on this conversation with us on the into webs.
[02:38:30] On Twitter, on Instagram.
[02:38:33] And when you're going to look at that face,
[02:38:35] Brokey Boha.
[02:38:36] We're going to be on that one too.
[02:38:38] So Echo is at Echo Charles.
[02:38:41] I am at Jockel Willink.
[02:38:43] And Brian Stan is at Brian Stan.
[02:38:46] I keep it simple.
[02:38:47] I like how you do it.
[02:38:48] Two ends on Stan.
[02:38:50] By the way, Echo Charles, you got any clothing thoughts?
[02:38:53] Sit.
[02:38:55] Man, my man, good to meet you and have you.
[02:38:57] For sure.
[02:38:58] Mr. Brian Stan.
[02:38:59] Pleasure to see you.
[02:39:00] Hey, Pleasure and honor.
[02:39:01] Thank you so much for having me on.
[02:39:03] We know we've been trying to do this for probably over a year now.
[02:39:06] Well worth it.
[02:39:07] And you've got a new subscriber.
[02:39:08] I've got to listen to more of this.
[02:39:09] I mean, we talk about a lot of things that we think we already know.
[02:39:12] But man, it's motivating, though, when you continue to hear it,
[02:39:15] you continue to hear it.
[02:39:16] And you hear like, my people out there achieving.
[02:39:18] Awesome.
[02:39:19] Thanks.
[02:39:20] Thanks for coming on.
[02:39:21] And I would like to thank everyone for listening.
[02:39:25] And we appreciate the support and the fact.
[02:39:29] More so the fact that you were out there with us.
[02:39:33] Trying to get better.
[02:39:35] And for those of you with a uniform on, especially those overseas right now.
[02:39:42] Taking the fight to the enemy.
[02:39:44] Thank you all for keeping us free to law enforcement and firefighters.
[02:39:50] Thanks to you for keeping us safe.
[02:39:53] For those of you that are just out there on the grind, working hard and doing good work.
[02:40:00] Go ahead and keep doing that.
[02:40:02] Good work.
[02:40:05] And Brian.
[02:40:08] Thanks for coming on.
[02:40:10] Thanks for your career in the octagon.
[02:40:13] Thanks for what you're doing now with the charity and helping vets.
[02:40:18] But most of all, thanks for your service to this great nation.
[02:40:25] And to your fellow Marines, who I was always humbled to serve alongside.
[02:40:36] Thanks to you.
[02:40:38] You proud leather necks for your service and sacrifice and forever upholding your motto.
[02:40:47] Your motto, Semper Fidelas.
[02:40:51] Always faithful.
[02:40:55] And when we go forward each of us, all of us, when we go forward in our lives.
[02:41:09] Let us do so with the intention of honoring those brave,
[02:41:16] souls, those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who stood and held the line.
[02:41:28] And gave their last full measure for us.
[02:41:43] So until next time, this is Brian, and echo, and juggle.
[02:41:52] Out.