Jocko Podcast 65 w/ Leif Babin - What to Carry to Be Prepared for Battle and Life

2017-03-08T08:32:24Z

Join the Conversation on Twitter: @jockowillink @leifbabin @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening "The Things They Carried", by Tim O'Brien. 0:05:30 - Weapons & Equipment we carried in Ramadi. 0:1230 - A hard lesson with Over-packing Equipment for Patrol. 0:28:04 - Training for adversity. 0:39:57 - How Adversity Training Payed off in Ramadi. 0:47:12 - Heat, Stink, and Moon Dust in Ramadi. 1:03:16 - The Strain of Being in Battle: Physical and Mental. 1:23:57 - How Complacency can Creep in And Kill. 1:36:50 - Reflecting on The Muster 001, and Thoughts on Upcoming Muster 002. 1:50:38 - 1:40:13 - Support, Cool Onnit, Amazon, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid, and The Muster002 2:22:18 - Closing Gratitude

AI summary of episode

and and I remember that that bond that we had an in task unit bruiser you know so often you get what the seals are doing their thing and you got the support personnel that are running the radios and the C.B.s that run the cabinet they just do different stuff and they don't you know what was so awesome about task in bruiser was like you lined those trucks up and we know we're going out you know we're going out at operation and and if you were weren't if you weren't coming on the op I know you would you would always be out there you know out there shaking everybody's hands and talking to him and and not in a way of like you know not in a way that there was more bit right but in a way of like just the respects and knowledge that any time we're going out like any one time there may be there may be any of these guys that are all now may not become a back from this they may be coming back in a body back and and that we had to be ready for that at all the time because it was almost a daily daily thing and I just not you know for for you and the the support personnel the comms guys you know our our our radio when that route there these aren't seals and they're you know does it say hey we wrote a book that's having some impact but when you see the things that they're doing when they're implementing extreme ownership when they're using cover move and they're not focused on themselves but about the mission and work together as a team and and using decentralized community you know it's playing the why to their teams and and the results are amazing you know see that happen and and that's really you know that's really what it's all about for us I think is seeing that kind of impact so it's been awesome to see that and looking forward for that to continue to grow and expand it's reach across the globe you know we we talk about in the book we talk about work on the Iraqi soldiers and one of the hardest things obviously even if you took a great soldier but they don't speak the language you speak any of a language barrier that's a real problem so a lot of times in these teams what the book gives them what the extreme ownership gives them it gives them a a language common language to talk about the issues the leadership problems that they're having they can identify because how can you fight an enemy that you can identify so if you know if you don't know that hey our decentralized command is weak and if you don't know what that is and you can identify how can you fix it if you got a cover move to solve problems and work together but you don't know what that looks like or you don't even know what to call it how are you going to get it solved so that's one of the things that I notice when we show up at a company that already is using it and have read it they're immediately saying you know and we are our our zero four four four five club PT's that we're cranking out these awesome workouts and and we I mean all levels of athletes there's some really high in you know athletes or black credible and you know you did two players to to the you know just just some folks who've just started training or just started hitting the gym and encouraged to but podcast or whatnot and came out participating that and and walking you know jogging over to or walking back from those those workouts talking those leaders and people talking what would you do in this situation you know I remember having those conversations with people and you're helping them apply that stuff we've heard do social media so many of those people some of those specific conversations like I can't believe how good this word here's what's going on I'm not I'm not able to I just got a promotion you know based on this you know those kind of that kind of feedback we always talk about so I'm gonna be able to watch more you know that even thought I needed so ridiculous amount of weight that I'm carried and so we load up I mean I'm having a hard time even just you know picking this bag up put it in so we load up in our vehicles we drive we meet up with the Marines we're loading up into their big seven ton trucks that they took in and they put the troops in the back these huge vehicles and that that was they would kind of drive you on the outskirts of the bad areas on roads they cleared and hopefully you were protecting and you know in those in those vehicles from from the armor then we unloaded and we unloaded from the vehicles once we got to a point and just so everyone knows these are like madmax scenario vehicles that people that that people military guys had had put steel on the sides you know half in steel on the sides to protect from rounds sandbags on the floor you know just put sandbags all over the floor so it's not like when when when he's talking about an armored vehicle don't think of a tank through or a Bradley fighting vehicle he's talking about a madmax scenario big giant seven ton truck that it looks like a construction truck and so they did a really good job of of suckering us in on that on that first patrol because they said hey we're just going to send you guys out on a shake out patrol tonight and so a shake out patrol in the sealed teams means you're going to put your gear on you want to see how everything rides on your body you want to make sure that it's comfortable you want to make sure that there's no you know tags that are wearing on you or anything like that that's just a shake out patrol get your little hand signals make sure we're all good to go get to know each other a little bit it's just like a little it's basically like a little walk like like a little walk I mean if they think it's probably going to take a shake out patrol should probably take you know you know what I'm doing go back to the book right now here we go they were called legs or grunts to carry something was to hump it as when lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps almost everyone humped photographs in his wallet lieutenant cross carry two photographs of Martha as a first lieutenant and platoon leader Jimmy Cross carried a compass map code books binoculars and a 45 caliber pistol that weighed 2.9 pounds fully loaded he carried a strobe light and the responsibility for the lives of his men as an RTO Mitchell Sanders carried the PRC 25 radio a killer 26 pounds with its battery as a medic rat Kylie carried a canvis satchel filled with morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a medic must carry including mnms for especially bad wounds for a total weight of nearly 18 pounds as a big man therefore a machine gunner Henry Dobb Dobbins carried the m60 which weighed 23 pounds unloaded but which was almost always loaded in addition Dobbins carried between 10 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and shoulders they all carried ghosts when dark came they would move out single file across the meadows and pattys to their ambush coordinates where they would quietly set up the claymores and lie down and spend the night waiting in that section when I was reading that clearly this is very similar to the operations that you conducted a ton of which was they're called a manborses here and we call them sniper overwatches but the idea you know the idea for those of what was happening is very very similar you know you guys are patrolling out to a location just like you talked about setting up for remain over day or for the night how did you feel like you know you kind of talked about it but did you feel like you were ready for that stuff oh maybe it's the TV spots that we don't know we didn't do that either so word of mouth it is exactly and not you know for that that's the real testament I think for you know for me that we wrote a book that's resin with leaders that's helping them get better to lead better teams for people to to be better teammates and employ these concepts in extreme ownership you know when we see them you know the the fire service training that's going on you know and face firefighters are using that as they're they're training man in a conduct in these these training or we see police police units doing it we see businesses you know and some of them bring us in and have training some of them they're holding their own training they're buying that book and they're they're learning out of it yeah below your nose just that just how it is over there just it was all just everywhere good times I'm taking this back to the book they moved like mules by daylight they took sniper fire at night they were mortored but it was not battle it was just the endless march village to village without purpose nothing one or lost they marched for the sake of the march they plotted along slowly, dumbling, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the patties and across the rivers and up and down again just pumping one step and then the next and then another but no volition no will because it was automatic it was anatomy and the war was entirely a matter of posture and courage the hump was everything a kind of inertia a kind of emptiness, a doneness of desire and intellect and conscious and hope and human sensibility their principles were in their feet their calculations were biological they had no sense of strategy or mission they searched the villages without knowing what to look for not caring kicking over jars of rice frisking children and old men blowing tunnels sometimes settings fires and sometimes not then forming up and moving on to the next village then other villages where it would always be the same they carried their own lives the pressures were enormous in the heat of early afternoon they would remove their helmets and flat jackets walking bear which was dangerous but which helped ease the strain now that that section obviously paints something different than what we experienced because and you can see what he's talking about you know you've got soldiers that don't know what the mission is that don't understand what the strategy is and you know there's all kinds of books about Vietnam and and at the highest you know we talk about sometimes how maybe we didn't do a good job of telling people what the strategy was but at the highest levels in the Vietnam war there's confusion on what the strategy just so there's no way that some frontline grunt understands why he's clearing this village and not that village or why it's that village and not this village they just don't know and I want to make sure that I've thought through all the contenders you know are we ready you know for for these worst case scenarios have we have we planned you know have we rehearsed these things have we tried have we thought what the enemy might do how could they hit us where we had even for senior you know that that burden that you just carried all the time and and for me you know man after after Mark I killed and Ryan got wounded it was just you know four months in our deployment it was just this recognition like man we're that can happen at any time that's it's like this common human emotion that you just make these assumptions and so the only way that units are going to stay focused and not have that happen when they've got good leaders they got a fire team leader in charge of his four guys to step up and make sure that his guys are squirt away and stay in focus they've got to you know they've got a squad leader making sure that his squad is squirt the LPO leading pet officers out there make sure that guys are dialed they're not cutting corners I mean I always saw that with guys you know we've been these type of Overwatch positions you got like some of them had like one stairwell in and out and someone's gonna watch that stairwell someone's got to have a weapon and look down that stairwell for 72 hours but look I think the reality was you were helping reinforce the lesson that you got to have your gear square to away you got to be ready for a contingency like that because that happened all the time to us you know where we like hey this is going to be you know obviously we're in Ramadi and we're like hey this is gonna be a 24 hour operation like no now it's a 48 hour operation now it turns into 72 hour operation we're gonna we're gonna stay here longer than we thought so you got to have you got to be square to be thinking about that and and I know you know we were kind of talking about this a little bit you know when you write a book you're confined in in some way to the structure of the book and to the length of the book and to the balance of the book and so you can't just drill down on some facet that might be it might not be totally pertinent to that particular way that it's laid out but what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to get next time you come on we got to do we got to do our own book we're going to do extreme ownership at least get it through a few chapters because because we we know the authors you know one more thing you know extra mag here extra mag there so you know I've got I've got those extra hand grenades I've got the extra a smoke grenades I've got you know I've got flash bang grenades I've got I've got you know four five extra magazines in addition to like the seven magazines and each of these are 30 round magazines we can you must have a hundred miles you can't at least raise them crazy amount of and then of course I've got my I'm carrying my 40 mic mic that's the that's the thing that fuels people and he just talks about this tiny percentage of men that will overcome that and they'll be brave and to think that we were lucky enough to serve with guys in our task unit and to see the next task unit come in and to see the soldiers and see the marines to overcome that strain on a daily basis that is absolutely one of the most humbling things that I think I will ever experience in my life that's what that's what courage all about you know I think just to to see guys you know that are just in the thick of the fight with bullets missing their heads by inches you know I remember our member on the rooftop of building 99 right on 20th street in the world we were getting hammered I mean enemy rounds coming in by hundreds and hundreds of rounds coming in shattered windows and I remember our EOD bomb disposal technician awesome awesome guys he's he's laying on the rooftop and there's armor piercing rounds coming through the roof punching through concrete wall you know that's just like three inches over his head and he's just laying there and and I remember crawling up there trying to figure out he's there by okay so they'll be one early in the morning so like before the sun comes up and we had to be in place you know you're going you're going in emitator you had to be in the building locked down ready to go because as soon as the call to prayer goes down you know that the city's gonna start awakening you know we're gonna start you know coming out of their houses and cars start n up and people moving around and and the sun's gonna come up you know pretty soon

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast, number 65.
[00:00:04] With echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink.
[00:00:07] Good evening, echo.
[00:00:09] Good evening.
[00:00:13] The things they carried were largely determined by necessity.
[00:00:18] Among the necessities or near necessities were P38 can openers, pocket knives, heat tabs,
[00:00:25] wrist watches, dog tags, mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy, cigarettes, salt tablets,
[00:00:31] packets of coolade, lighters, matches, sewing kits, military payment certificates,
[00:00:37] sea rations, and two or three canteens of water.
[00:00:43] Together, these items weighed between 12 and 18 pounds, depending on a man's habits
[00:00:48] or rate of metabolism.
[00:00:51] In Redobbins, who was a big man, carried extra rations.
[00:00:55] He was especially fond of canned peaches in heavy syrup over pound cake.
[00:01:02] Dave Jensen, who practiced field hygiene, carried a toothbrush, dental floss, and several
[00:01:08] hotel-sized bars of soap, he'd stolen on Aronor and Sydney, Australia.
[00:01:16] Red Lavender, who was scared, carried tranquilizers until he was shot in the head outside
[00:01:22] the village of Thape K in mid-April.
[00:01:26] By necessity, and because it was SOP, they all carried steel helmets that weighed five
[00:01:32] pounds, including the liner and camouflage cover.
[00:01:37] They carried the standard fatigue jackets and trousers.
[00:01:41] Very few, carried underwear.
[00:01:45] On their feet, they carried jungle boots, 2.1 pounds, and Dave Jensen carried three
[00:01:50] pairs of socks, and a can of doctor's skulls, foot powder, as a precaution against trench
[00:01:56] foot.
[00:01:59] Until he was shot, Ted Lavender carried six or seven ounces of premium dope, which for
[00:02:06] him was an necessity.
[00:02:11] Michel Sanders, the RTO, carried condoms, Norman Boucher, carried a diary, rat Kylie,
[00:02:17] carried comic books.
[00:02:20] Kayawa, a devout Baptist, carried an illustrated New Testament that had been presented
[00:02:26] to him by his father, who taught Sunday school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
[00:02:33] His head was a hedge against bad times, however, Kayawa also carried his grandmother's trust,
[00:02:40] distrust of the white man.
[00:02:44] His grandfather's old hunting hatchet.
[00:02:50] Necessity dictated, because the land was mined in Booby trap, there was SOP for each man
[00:02:55] to carry a steel-centered nylon covered flack jacket, which weighed six point seven pounds,
[00:03:02] which on hot days seemed much heavier.
[00:03:06] Because you could die so quickly, each man carried at least one large compress bandage,
[00:03:11] usually in the helmet band for easy access.
[00:03:16] The nights were cold, and because the monsoon were wet, each carried a green plastic
[00:03:21] poncho that could be used as a raincoat or ground sheet, or makes shift 10.
[00:03:28] And it's quilted liner, the poncho weighed almost two pounds, but it was worth every ounce.
[00:03:35] In April, for instance, when Ted Lavender was shot, they used his poncho to wrap him
[00:03:42] up, then to carry him across the patty, then to lift him onto the chopper that took him away.
[00:03:56] And that excerpt is from a book called The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
[00:04:06] Then the book is about the Vietnam War, and it's actually a blend of non-fiction and fiction.
[00:04:16] And part of that blend comes from what he actually experienced for real, as a soldier in
[00:04:25] Vietnam, in third-platoon, alpha company, fifth-patallion, 46th Infantry Regiment.
[00:04:34] And incidentally, he was in the same division and the same area of operations where the
[00:04:40] Mi-Lai massacre took place.
[00:04:45] And then that reality is intermingled with his thoughts and ideas and stories that put together
[00:04:52] a unique perspective on war.
[00:04:59] But the book is considered fiction, and I don't like to dig too deep on fictional books.
[00:05:07] So I'm not going to go too deep on this one, but I was having a little conversation with
[00:05:12] my brother, Dave Babin, with whom I wrote a little book called Extreme Ownership.
[00:05:22] So, Dave and I were talking about the things that we carried.
[00:05:29] And tonight we have the good fortune of having my brother, Dave Babin, here with us again
[00:05:37] today.
[00:05:39] And I figured a good way to begin talking about what we carried was to kind of compare and
[00:05:47] contrast what we did carry with what men like Tim O'Brien carried in Vietnam.
[00:05:57] Dave Babin, my brother, welcome to the show for the third time.
[00:06:02] Thanks for having me on.
[00:06:03] You're going to be back on again.
[00:06:05] And for those of you that don't know who Dave is, if you haven't been listening or if
[00:06:10] this is basically the first time you've ever listened to this podcast for some reason,
[00:06:14] if you're not going to know, glauph is, life was in the sealed teams with me.
[00:06:19] We were in the battle or modded together.
[00:06:21] And when we both got out of the military, I retired and late, late, late, got out.
[00:06:27] And we ended up working together.
[00:06:28] We have a little business called National On Front.
[00:06:30] We're going to work with companies and teach leadership and management.
[00:06:33] And we wrote a little book like I just said, called Extreme Ownership.
[00:06:36] And actually, if you want to know about life, well, you can read Extreme Ownership.
[00:06:40] You can listen to podcast number 11 and podcast number 34.
[00:06:46] Laf was the first guest.
[00:06:49] And here he is back again.
[00:06:51] So, Laef Babin, what did you carry?
[00:06:57] Talk to me about that.
[00:06:59] Compared to what these guys in Vietnam carry.
[00:07:01] I mean, obviously there's a lot of similarities.
[00:07:03] There's a lot of differences too.
[00:07:05] What do you think?
[00:07:06] Definitely.
[00:07:07] I mean, it brings back so many memories just thinking about all the stuff that we
[00:07:10] carried with us and the burden of just the heavy.
[00:07:16] We used to joke about stuff, body armor back.
[00:07:18] The body armor just biting into your traps.
[00:07:21] I feel you've had it on for hours and hours of the helmets, just the vice down on your head.
[00:07:26] Obviously, we had a training prepared so that we could prepare to have those things on
[00:07:30] for hours and hours and be able to deal with that.
[00:07:33] And in fact, I remember you being the only guy in the universe that actually liked
[00:07:39] a certain type of headset that we were using because it actually crushed down on your
[00:07:43] skull and were like, bring it good.
[00:07:46] Everyone else is complaining about it.
[00:07:47] You're like, you're like, I actually like this.
[00:07:49] I think her at my head.
[00:07:51] I would never have admitted it back then.
[00:07:53] But yeah, it hurt bad.
[00:07:54] It would squeeze your head in that awkward way.
[00:07:56] And that was bad.
[00:07:57] That was a, that was a gnarly old headset.
[00:08:00] But a lot heavier because the body armor, where were we?
[00:08:04] How much did our body armor weigh?
[00:08:06] There's like seven pounds of plate and you got a front and back plate and then you got
[00:08:10] the nine mil body armor.
[00:08:12] And that right there is heavy.
[00:08:15] And then the funny thing is we were able to make our weapons a little bit later over time,
[00:08:18] but then we've decked them all out with lasers and optics and everything.
[00:08:21] So the weapons, I bet your weapons were actually heavier.
[00:08:23] Definitely.
[00:08:24] And then like for me, we had trained to carry those little 10 inch barrel.
[00:08:29] We have an M4 of the 10 inch barrel which we use for close quarters combat, house clearance.
[00:08:34] And as you know, that was like the primary weapon and we get to our body.
[00:08:38] I was like, I got to carry my 14 inch barrel which is longer and it's got an M2O3 grenade launcher
[00:08:43] on it.
[00:08:44] So you got a 40 millimeter grenade and that's what becomes, comes a lot heavier based on that.
[00:08:48] I just, I needed that to be able to throw some 40 mic mic down.
[00:08:52] Now one of the things that I know was, I mean, we all going to lock in combat and actually
[00:08:58] Andy Stump was just on and I know your friends with him too, but we were talking about the
[00:09:02] learning curve of how quickly you learn things.
[00:09:05] And I know you learn some pretty solid and rough lessons out of the gate going on to
[00:09:12] big patrols, right, right, right when we got there.
[00:09:15] And specifically about what you carried.
[00:09:18] Absolutely.
[00:09:19] I mean, we had to focus so much on doing a roll up a salt.
[00:09:24] We're a loadup in vehicles.
[00:09:25] So you're not, you don't have to carry much on your person because we're trying to
[00:09:31] drive up in vehicles.
[00:09:32] And so we get to Ramaday and of course we've done our patrols out the desert, done that
[00:09:36] that training and prepared for that.
[00:09:38] But we think we're going to Iraq and we're going to drive in vehicles and we get to
[00:09:41] Ramaday and these IDs are so dangerous and killing people.
[00:09:46] So what do you do?
[00:09:47] You get out of the vehicle and you patrol, which means if you're going into an area and
[00:09:50] you've got to carry everything on your back and you've got to carry enough water and
[00:09:53] all the stuff you've got to have for the next 24 or even 48 hours, it's a lot of stuff.
[00:09:59] And one of the first patrols, I've done a few patrols on the Altskirts of town, but that
[00:10:05] city center where it was Alkhaida control battle space and US troops were dying almost
[00:10:12] every day in this horrible violent place.
[00:10:15] We've been on the ground for a couple weeks and we were teaming up with a marineat
[00:10:21] from 38 marines, third batai and eight marines, outstanding group of warriors who've been
[00:10:27] on a ground for a month or two prior to us getting there and they were these guys were in
[00:10:31] the thick of the fight and they were they had adjusted their tactics and learned how to go
[00:10:36] out there and and conduct these patrols as we were teaming up with them to go into an
[00:10:40] area called firecracker circle.
[00:10:42] As firecracker is in, hey, this is a happy place with 4th of July or firecracker is in massive
[00:10:48] bombs.
[00:10:49] As in there's a 400 pound explosive in the road that's going to blow your vehicle 100 feet
[00:10:53] in the air and kill everybody.
[00:10:54] That was that area firecracker they did not as a matter of fact when we even even later
[00:11:00] than this when you were looking at doing operations in there and I remember sitting there with
[00:11:04] the marines going hey what's the QRF situation who can come in to get us and they were like
[00:11:07] hey look we're not coming in there with vehicles unless they're like hey if it's an absolute
[00:11:14] worst case scenario and you got to get somebody to cast a fact immediately but if you get a
[00:11:18] guy get shot in the leg and you can stop the bleeding you're going to wait till my time
[00:11:22] you they were adamant about not going in there because it was so bad I mean they patrolled
[00:11:26] in there all the time which you're about to talk about but nobody wanted to bring vehicles
[00:11:29] up in those streets and actually part of that reason is because just before we got there they
[00:11:33] took a massive eye the Marine Corps took a massive eye to hit it and I think they lost four
[00:11:37] five marines in one shot just just a total of travel.
[00:11:40] That was right as we were arriving here in the stores about that and reading reports on it
[00:11:44] and horrible horrible deal but that was a great tactic that we learned from the marines
[00:11:49] which is listen the bad guys they want to blow you up in the streets they're going to try to
[00:11:53] target your vehicles they're going to try to ambush you so when you're in a building in a sniper
[00:11:57] over watch position and you're behind concrete walls like stay in that position stay in that position
[00:12:03] unless you have an urgent surgical casually you've got to get out right now or you're going
[00:12:07] to be overrun only in extreme situations so we're not going to call in the QRF because they're
[00:12:12] going to blow the vehicles and that's what they want you to do and they taught us some of
[00:12:15] those things that we're that help keep our guys alive and certainly helped us perfect our our
[00:12:22] our tactics techniques and procedures to be able to go deep into those areas and and do some
[00:12:27] real damage to the enemy and most of the time bring our guys up. So speaking of going deep how
[00:12:32] deep did you have to dig on that first patrol out with three eight Marines so we're going into this
[00:12:36] area I mean we you know these marines are just lost guys and we were going in with a lemma company
[00:12:40] outstanding group of warriors and and you know we were excited to go in and work with them so I've
[00:12:46] got to you know we got about a squad of seals going in we got some Iraqi soldiers and we're going
[00:12:50] to team up and we're going to put in some mutually supporting sniper over watch positions and remain
[00:12:55] you know through through that we're going in night time we'd remain through the day and we come out
[00:13:00] the next night so I'm like hey I'm going in there we may be in there for twenty four to could even be
[00:13:04] longer if we get delayed and you know what this is a bad era nobody can come come get us out
[00:13:09] so I'm load now for World War three and you know my first time going in these areas I mean I'm
[00:13:16] packing hand grenades and extra mags and you know our tip collowed out was two hand grenades and I
[00:13:22] think I added a I added like three or five extra hand grenades that I was bringing and so I put
[00:13:27] that my back I'm bringing I've got you know my tip I was actually laughing about this because we've
[00:13:32] done a lot talking about World War One and they had grenade battles like like trench to trench
[00:13:38] grenade battles and I don't even think if I was going into our grenade battle when that was my
[00:13:43] primary weapon I would have seven grenades like life was carried right into Ramadi bring it
[00:13:49] it's awesome so I'm getting I'm getting ready I'm getting ready to get some and you know I'm thinking
[00:13:53] that if we're getting overrun and we're loading up on it so it's like one more thing one more thing
[00:13:58] you know extra mag here extra mag there so you know I've got I've got those extra hand grenades
[00:14:03] I've got the extra a smoke grenades I've got you know I've got flash bang grenades I've got I've got you know
[00:14:10] four five extra magazines in addition to like the seven magazines and each of these are 30
[00:14:15] round magazines we can you must have a hundred miles you can't at least raise them crazy amount of and
[00:14:20] then of course I've got my I'm carrying my 40 mic mic right so I've got 40 millimeter grenades as well
[00:14:24] and and I was typically you know I'm loading that out so so I've got a band allure of 12 with
[00:14:29] those things I think I had six more on me in in a pouch on my waist so literally I'm rolling in like
[00:14:37] John J Rambo style ready to get some so that this is your see you know as I'm sitting here
[00:14:42] thing that must have been a hundred pounds worth of gear with your body armor all those grenades
[00:14:46] smoke grenades 40 mic mic you must have had at least close to a hundred pounds I think I think
[00:14:53] easy because then you tack on water you know that was the biggest limiting factor for us I mean you know and you got the
[00:14:59] summer time heat over there just just unbearable you know may hit a hundred fifteen hundred twenty degrees
[00:15:05] and so here we are remain over day you're not gonna drink the water out of the faucet you know unless you want to be
[00:15:11] unless you want to be visiting make it some frequent head calls and having some disintera for the next
[00:15:18] next few days and what that's gonna bring you so so you got to get a care of that water in you know
[00:15:23] we carry this leader and a half bottles that they had I think I had probably ten or twelve of those
[00:15:28] bottles too so I'm like I don't want to run out of water so I'm gonna be able to watch more
[00:15:31] you know that even thought I needed so ridiculous amount of weight that I'm carried and so we load
[00:15:36] up I mean I'm having a hard time even just you know picking this bag up put it in so we load
[00:15:40] up in our vehicles we drive we meet up with the Marines we're loading up into their big seven ton
[00:15:44] trucks that they took in and they put the troops in the back these huge vehicles and that that was
[00:15:49] they would kind of drive you on the outskirts of the bad areas on roads they cleared and hopefully
[00:15:54] you were protecting and you know in those in those vehicles from from the armor then we unloaded
[00:15:59] and we unloaded from the vehicles once we got to a point and just so everyone knows these are like
[00:16:03] madmax scenario vehicles that people that that people military guys had had put
[00:16:09] steel on the sides you know half in steel on the sides to protect from rounds sandbags on the floor
[00:16:16] you know just put sandbags all over the floor so it's not like when when when he's talking
[00:16:20] about an armored vehicle don't think of a tank through or a Bradley fighting vehicle he's talking
[00:16:24] about a madmax scenario big giant seven ton truck that it looks like a construction truck
[00:16:30] basically but it's got big steel walls on it and now they put sandbags on the floor to prevent
[00:16:35] from IDs and that's going to war in the fun way straight straight out of the road warrior
[00:16:43] stuff and so we get dropped off from those vehicles and of course we're getting up and you know as
[00:16:47] soon as I'm putting this thing on like man I'm carried I can't wait to drink this water you know
[00:16:52] I can't wait to try to shoot some of these rounds you know get to get rid of some of this
[00:16:56] weight because I realize like it's it's crazy it's crazy man of course you're like you know
[00:17:00] you don't want to run an ammo but you also you know you can't if you can't move then then it
[00:17:05] becomes even more dangerous so we started patrol and we're moving in the area and and and the
[00:17:09] Marines who who'd spent the time on the granite I talked about me there they're method of patrol
[00:17:14] because there were a lot of enemy snipers out there and even though it's nighttime you know there's
[00:17:17] still some street lights and things like that so the method of patrol is two man shooter pairs
[00:17:22] and there those guys got each other's backs you got two guys covered two different directions
[00:17:26] and they're holding on on a on a street corner and and then they're waiting for the the next
[00:17:33] shooter pair that's up to the next block from them and they sprint all out mad dash sprint
[00:17:40] it's fast as you can go as fast as you can run from one corner to the next one so it's it's
[00:17:44] it's a hundred moon but it's a cover in sprint as exactly and some of those blocks maybe it's
[00:17:49] 50R some of them it's a hundred yards but you know and this is how they patrol into the city so it's
[00:17:54] it is you you're your sprint hold sprint hold sprint hold and you know a few blocks are going into
[00:18:00] that and we're kind of moving around the city and the misdirections like man I am smoke I'm having
[00:18:04] so hard time keep it up and just my hat these these young Marines that are just getting after
[00:18:09] it carrying heavy heavy equipment and gear and the radio man and the guy carrying his you know
[00:18:15] his 40 mic mic and there of course they're carrying the two 240 Bravo machine gun which is
[00:18:20] a belt for machine gun that that was much heavier than what what I you know more at
[00:18:24] Forty-eight slider machine guns were for our meeting machine guns but these guys were just awesome just awesome
[00:18:31] trying to you know trying to work with them but I am I am having one hell of a time trying to keep
[00:18:36] up with these guys so what does that do to your it's a do to your leadership capability when
[00:18:41] you're you're I'm tired you're I'm supposed to be in charge of this thing so I'm in charge of this
[00:18:47] I'm in charge of my guys you know we got a squad of eight of our guys eight seals and you know
[00:18:51] it does in our acy soldiers so and I'm supposed to be a charge I'm supposed to be thinking about
[00:18:57] the bigger picture and be able to attach and all the things that we talk about sitting back and
[00:19:00] thinking about you know what's going on you know half mile up the road and making you know
[00:19:05] a radio calls back to the the tactical operations center talking to you and telling you where we are and
[00:19:09] what's going on and I can't I'm focused at this point on putting one foot in front of the other just
[00:19:15] head down one foot in front of the other and just try to keep up you know and here I am the
[00:19:19] guy just having a hard time keeping up and it was it was humbling humbling experience for me here I am
[00:19:26] a seal a team guy thinking I'm in shape and you know and I'm in an area where you know I'm not a
[00:19:31] climate us to this kind of brutal heat even at nighttime it's 95 degrees outside you know and there's
[00:19:38] no wind no wind and and you think oh it's a dry heat in the desert no the rivers like you know just
[00:19:44] it's not a dry heat yeah we're not in the water right yeah we were half you know half my
[00:19:48] whole off the river so it's it's humid along the river so it was it was horrible and I was
[00:19:54] realizing like this I got my ass kicked I mean it was by the time we got back from that it was I
[00:20:00] knew I was going into a heavy like heat exhaust like I was I was hitting the like the heat exhaust
[00:20:05] in point where it was like this is rough this is rough and that's the thing that's scary about
[00:20:10] heat exhaustion scenarios is it's like a cliff you're walking off of and when you're getting close to
[00:20:15] the cliff and when you go off of it it's not like you say okay let me get a sip of water no
[00:20:19] you're in big trouble you got guys carrying you now because you you know if you get the heat stroke
[00:20:23] or heat exhaust and it's a bad bad situation and it doesn't matter how tough you are you're not
[00:20:28] going to be able to power through that right physically uh and so that's what you know that's the
[00:20:33] nightmare scenario for me that here I am the leader and yet if I can't keep up it's going to
[00:20:36] have to carry me right that was that was just going to be a horrific disaster so you know we
[00:20:42] went to that operation we were out there for you know a remain throughout the course that the the
[00:20:46] the daylight we got shot at we shot at some bad guys and and then we came out you know the next night
[00:20:52] and I got back from that I'll re-aggressively returning fire to get some of those rounds we definitely
[00:20:57] grew up to return fire unfortunately didn't get a chance to throw any of the hangar neds
[00:21:01] round which was a real bummer but yeah I mean it was it was a real rude awakening for me just
[00:21:08] being humble by that experience to come back and think I'm carrying way too much stuff I can't you
[00:21:14] know it's it's sure I don't want to run out of ammo you know in it but but how much more dangerous
[00:21:20] isn't for me to be carrying so much stuff that I can't even keep up on a patrol I can't move
[00:21:24] fast when I need to and if bad guys start shooting at us I can't get my guys off the street you know
[00:21:29] or I can't move run across the street or run up the stairs and and so I recognize right away like
[00:21:34] I've got to I got to pair this down and I got to carry just the essential stuff and maybe
[00:21:39] a couple of contingency plants like maybe I got one extra grenade in my backpack and maybe I don't
[00:21:45] even need that you know what do I really absolutely need you know don't want to run out of water
[00:21:50] out there so maybe I got one extra bottle don't need four you know with me and and that enable me like
[00:21:56] to to recognize that I've got to carry only the essential stuff because you can absolutely get
[00:22:01] overwhelmed and part of that too if you're you know we were training we trained at land warfare at
[00:22:07] the time you know what was the attitude was we do land warfare in the seal teams so we don't we don't
[00:22:13] we're helmet and body armor for land warfare so we'll go out and patrol across the desert and do
[00:22:17] that stuff we were helmet body armor when we do CQC close quarters combat in the in the kill house
[00:22:23] and you know here we are in an urban environment like got to gotta be able to do both I'm
[00:22:28] full patrolling and then we're clearing houses so gotta have that stuff and and just recognize how
[00:22:33] you just cannot carry all that stuff with you so that was the route away came from me and the
[00:22:37] other piece of that was physical training you know here I was thinking I'm in shape I'm a team guy
[00:22:42] you know we train hard we push the envelope and yet I am not in good enough shape to be able to
[00:22:48] perform at the level I need to in this kind of heat in this kind of environment you know and after that
[00:22:53] you know you would see not I was in less and not just me learn but I saw it's so many of you know
[00:22:57] it's you bruise or you showed up if you showed up at like noon if I heat of the day you see guys
[00:23:03] out doing tire flips doing doing you know sprints running working out to get a climate ties to be
[00:23:10] ready for those those worst case scenarios and we recognize that we thought we were good and we
[00:23:14] had to step it up to it to and even I actually took one of those workouts and I would do it at
[00:23:20] victory MMA training fighters but the workout was it was a dummy carry because we had a big
[00:23:27] old heavy bag so it was a dummy carry carry it down and back sprinters hard as you can then grab the
[00:23:33] tire it was a tire pulled down and back and then a sprint down and back and what that was simulating
[00:23:37] was like okay you might have to pick up a guy and carry him down or carry him somewhere then you
[00:23:40] all you also might have to grab a guy and drag him and then you might just have to sprint but that
[00:23:45] was we do that like you said we do that stuff at high noon because because like you said everyone
[00:23:49] want to be acclimated for the worst case scenario and that was something we saw over and over again
[00:23:53] even the by the way I remember you running those I remember you running Dean through that
[00:23:57] uh do that training it was brutal I was like that too much did it that's rough that's a rough thing
[00:24:03] good training awesome training you know it prepare you for those worst case scenarios but we it was
[00:24:08] humbling we'd see you know we'd have great team guys brothers who showed up you know in
[00:24:12] the body and want to go out and patrol with us guys who we knew were incredibly fit
[00:24:17] great athletes kept themselves in shape these certainly weren't the guys that let themselves go
[00:24:22] and we take them out and patrol and like they'd be falling back you know they'd be having a hard time
[00:24:25] keep up they'd have they had to learn that same lesson that I learned and then you'd see him after
[00:24:30] getting after it like training and pushing the envelope and I think that was a lesson that you know
[00:24:36] we learned some great taxes from Marines and also got I was my hats off for those young Marines
[00:24:40] that were that were getting out there in the thick of it they taught me some some some great lessons
[00:24:44] there that enabled us to go forward and and really push you know push the envelope go in
[00:24:50] deep in areas that nobody could get into and set up the sniper over watches and help
[00:24:54] and protect the soldier Marines that were building those combat outposts but we had to be physically
[00:24:59] fit and we had to carry only the essential gear that we needed you know what's interesting
[00:25:04] I'm sitting over here because we didn't you know obviously we're in a business consulting business
[00:25:09] but same thing that we'll see with businesses when they want to they want to do the same thing
[00:25:17] they want to build their infrastructure so much that they can handle any scenario that's going
[00:25:21] to happen so they're going to hire three more people in case of this and they'll hire six more
[00:25:25] people for that and they'll hire four more people for that for that contingency right it's like
[00:25:30] you saying well I might run out of magazine so I'm going to put five more of my backpack and I might
[00:25:34] throw these four grenades so I need three more and the next thing you know these companies they're
[00:25:38] so overburdened with with overhead and with cost structure that the same thing happens what
[00:25:44] happens they lose their ability to maneuver and so it's the same thing you take that combat
[00:25:49] principle of carry what you need think about it and don't carry too much and you can apply
[00:25:55] that to the business world if you don't need to bring that extra person on board and you can
[00:26:00] get away with a contract for a little while you can pay somebody some overtime do that until you
[00:26:05] have to make that decision and you'll know so that's something you actually taught me in in
[00:26:11] Ramadi you know we you can't you had been in Baghdad and had those good the experiences of these
[00:26:16] capture kill raids and it always seemed like where we're going in this house we don't know what's in
[00:26:22] that house we know we believe a bad guy to be there and maybe yes people so so I'm going to put
[00:26:26] 25 assaulters in that house and you know I'm gonna put as many people as I can and then you're like hey
[00:26:32] late I don't think you need that many people and initially I was like that's crazy why we're
[00:26:35] not going to take them all and then you're recognized like 25 people in the house there's a lot more
[00:26:40] mayhem there's a lot more chaos there's people bumping into each other and you're like yeah maybe
[00:26:44] maybe 14 guys is all I need you know for this particular day yes what else um when you're on this
[00:26:49] target where's the biggest threat the biggest threat actually oftentimes isn't in the building
[00:26:55] you're taking down because you're doing that aggressively you have a good force the the harder threat
[00:26:59] to cut you know where the threat is a building is you know 480 square feet or 1,400 square feet
[00:27:05] you know how big that puts it it's a it's a finite area whereas when you're in the street
[00:27:10] 360 degrees that threats there so where do you actually need people to cover a threat that you
[00:27:16] don't know and don't understand you need them in the streets that's where you need them and that's
[00:27:21] where we always went heavy on the streets and at the assault team is a smaller package and plus
[00:27:25] it's very easy and very controlled to be able to say jocco I need four more guys in here boom you
[00:27:31] got him super is doing the opposite hey send four guys out in the street we don't know where but
[00:27:36] send guys out it's it's totally it's much more hard it's much harder to do that because it's a
[00:27:40] much less controlled situation out in the streets and I think for leaders that planning piece right
[00:27:45] to think about where is that contingency what what are the life of the contingencies that may
[00:27:49] happen so yeah keep that essential personnel essential resources and focus you can't plan for
[00:27:55] every contingency and if you do you're going to overwhelm your team and it's going to it's going to
[00:28:00] cause more problems trying to solve every contingency than then it wouldn't otherwise yeah
[00:28:07] all right that's good stuff you know what I'm doing go back to the book right now
[00:28:14] here we go they were called legs or grunts to carry something was to hump it
[00:28:26] as when lieutenant Jimmy Cross humped his love for Martha up the hills and through the swamps
[00:28:33] almost everyone humped photographs in his wallet lieutenant cross carry two photographs of Martha
[00:28:41] as a first lieutenant and platoon leader Jimmy Cross carried a compass map code books
[00:28:49] binoculars and a 45 caliber pistol that weighed 2.9 pounds fully loaded he carried a strobe
[00:28:57] light and the responsibility for the lives of his men as an RTO Mitchell Sanders carried the PRC 25
[00:29:07] radio a killer 26 pounds with its battery as a medic rat Kylie carried a canvis satchel filled with
[00:29:16] morphine and plasma and malaria tablets and surgical tape and comic books and all the things a
[00:29:22] medic must carry including mnms for especially bad wounds for a total weight of nearly 18 pounds
[00:29:28] as a big man therefore a machine gunner Henry Dobb Dobbins carried the m60 which weighed 23
[00:29:41] pounds unloaded but which was almost always loaded in addition Dobbins carried between 10
[00:29:48] 15 pounds of ammunition draped in belts across his chest and shoulders they all carried ghosts
[00:30:00] when dark came they would move out single file across the meadows and pattys to their ambush
[00:30:06] coordinates where they would quietly set up the claymores and lie down and spend the night
[00:30:12] waiting in that section when I was reading that clearly this is very similar to the
[00:30:25] operations that you conducted a ton of which was they're called a manborses here and we call
[00:30:30] them sniper overwatches but the idea you know the idea for those of what was happening is very
[00:30:38] very similar you know you guys are patrolling out to a location just like you talked about
[00:30:44] setting up for remain over day or for the night how did you feel like you know you kind of
[00:30:51] talked about it but did you feel like you were ready for that stuff and you know a lot of times
[00:30:59] like you said we were we were we trained to drive a lot then we ended up walking so much
[00:31:06] because the idea threat how did you manage that once you got on the ground well I think thank God
[00:31:12] we had actually trained and you know it's been a part of the seal teams it's Vietnam you know going
[00:31:17] out in the southern California desert and training in you know land warfare you know is that
[00:31:21] that awesome block where you go out and learn how to patrol which we talked you know you talked
[00:31:26] a lot about the podcast and started we talked about with that song front and you know where it's
[00:31:30] man camp out in the southern California desert in this rugged environment with just sharp rocks
[00:31:35] and and you practice with spines and rattlesnakes so so real quick everybody in the world will
[00:31:43] may hear the term southern California they think of Baywatch right yeah they think of Baywatch
[00:31:50] we talking about Baywatch so when you go east from the coast in southern California you enter
[00:31:57] a place places that have names like death valley right those are the kind of areas we're talking
[00:32:02] about we're not talking about so cow Baywatch we're talking about inland in the deserts the hard
[00:32:12] deserts of California and that's where it's one of the primary places where we trained for
[00:32:17] for combat and it is I always used to say that our desert training facility is where men
[00:32:23] become frog men even though there's no water out there it's where men become frogmen because
[00:32:28] it'll test you no doubt and I you know thank god that we we get tested like that put you know that
[00:32:33] that kind of training is something that's kept seals alive on the battlefield and able
[00:32:38] us to to accomplish some some great things for a long time and I remember that first shake out
[00:32:43] patrol you know that was a good one the land war for instructors we're fired up a gap in the
[00:32:47] desert to train get our land war for on dial it in our procedures and learn how to work together
[00:32:53] there's a team and patrol and we show up to the camp it was funny because generally I mean I'm
[00:33:03] not going to say that you have this immense trust with the cadre but like you know we're kind
[00:33:11] of friends with like these guys we know them and so they did a really good job of of suckering
[00:33:16] us in on that on that first patrol because they said hey we're just going to send you guys
[00:33:21] out on a shake out patrol tonight and so a shake out patrol in the sealed teams means you're going
[00:33:27] to put your gear on you want to see how everything rides on your body you want to make sure
[00:33:32] that it's comfortable you want to make sure that there's no you know tags that are wearing on you
[00:33:37] or anything like that that's just a shake out patrol get your little hand signals make sure
[00:33:40] we're all good to go get to know each other a little bit it's just like a little it's basically
[00:33:44] like a little walk like like a little walk I mean if they think it's probably going to take a
[00:33:48] shake out patrol should probably take you know hour maybe two hours at the most we're just going to be
[00:33:52] you know kind of relaxed mode doing a little shake out patrol and that was the setup and it's
[00:33:57] administrative right so you're like hey let's work on this it's that so it's not like you're
[00:34:01] you're in the game acting like you're in the enemy territory the whole time and you know so
[00:34:05] you're kind of talking with instructors and figuring things out so yeah so they're like oh yeah just
[00:34:10] the the the lamb weren't for cadre like yeah just just a little shake out patrol and they'll be
[00:34:14] doing so we're just showing up you know no one's got there I know I didn't have my gear stitch I
[00:34:19] grabbed some stuff that I had from advanced training it what we call SQT so a walk I was
[00:34:24] getting to training from from like two years before that and I had these two canteens that had been
[00:34:31] filled with water in that gear and I don't think I emptied that water in like two years so there's
[00:34:39] probably a little algae growth and some massive is going on in these canteens so I just like don't
[00:34:44] want to shake out patrol you know and then we were rushed because they were like hey we got to
[00:34:47] get this going we got to get this going so we arrived you know guys are trying to get settled and like
[00:34:51] hey get you know get your gear on let's get over there let's it's so so we throw our gear on and
[00:34:56] I throw on that gear with those canteens you know there's this two year old water in it and we're
[00:35:02] and we go we take off in the patrol and what we didn't know was that this shake out patrol was
[00:35:09] uh was a was a man test it was a man test and what what were we like using the sealed teems called
[00:35:14] the mud suck which is basically a sucker punch right they they put together a patrol that was
[00:35:20] it took hours and hours it took the whole night the whole circle of darkness so hold that
[00:35:26] and and no one had I mean several guys didn't have any water I remember I remember a Ryan Joe
[00:35:32] had like no water at all and I remember him like you know just struggle was like hey uh sir do you
[00:35:40] have do you have some water and I actually came up I came up to you I think because you said no one
[00:35:46] had water and actually I had water I had water I was going on to me it was like shake out patrol
[00:35:53] of course even though I was like oh it's kind of administrative of course in my mind I'm like hey
[00:35:56] it's a shake out patrol but I'm doing everything the way I would do it normally because I'm super
[00:36:00] hardcore so I got all my stuff the way it's supposed in and also I had the advantage of having
[00:36:05] done a lot of these trips in my time so for me I didn't it wasn't trying anything new it wasn't
[00:36:10] shake out patrol from here it's just a patrol but yeah I went got good water my canteens my
[00:36:14] camel back and I was all good to go and I was ready for this and because this will make those
[00:36:19] freedom give you your you had the freedom to go out and execute with your water uh meanwhile I'm
[00:36:24] carrying these canteens that I know like I did you say you're like your first sip you spit it out
[00:36:28] I actually I actually I got so thirsty right that finally I was like I got it I got to drink
[00:36:34] something and so I I I pulled one of these canteens out again you know it's just nasty I opened it up
[00:36:42] I like smell it was like made it smells like a it smells like a fish aquarium you know
[00:36:46] and I like just but at this point I'm desperate right I'm just we're like two or three
[00:36:50] four hours into this thing I'm gonna sweat so I was like I take a big sip in this thing and
[00:36:55] it just immediately projectile vomit that up that stuff back up and I I think I gave one of those
[00:37:03] canteens to to rise is so this desperate but I asked you for water how that word did I ask you
[00:37:09] for water I was like hey jocco do you have any water and I was like yes that was like yes I do
[00:37:16] and you said keep I can you he's your voice was scratching me to hold my yard you were dehydrated
[00:37:20] you're like can you give some of that to Ryan he's eating bring any water and I said something
[00:37:25] along the lines of well firstly I said no you can't have any of my water if if you want water you
[00:37:31] must hump it in you don't I don't hump in your water and I'm not humping in Ryan's water that
[00:37:36] doesn't work this way you bring in your own water and then I this I think I said like if he's going
[00:37:42] to die I will give you some water if he's not going to die you'll get nothing and he got nothing
[00:37:50] so and it just everybody says like it is it is pretty if you can't carry your own stuff in right
[00:37:56] it's pretty to boot to boot to have to like depend on somebody else and no kidding at that point
[00:38:02] we didn't actually know I didn't know how long we're gonna be in the field for I mean we
[00:38:07] didn't keep it in the dark they didn't care if we were going on and they did a really good job
[00:38:11] of they brought us into the hill into the hills of southern California where you're going to
[00:38:17] be going up and down terrain and the terrain is uneven and they did this whole link up drill so
[00:38:21] it wasn't like we were just blindly walking it was link up from starting with swim pairs and then
[00:38:26] fire team link up and then squad link up and then platoon link up and yeah so the future was very
[00:38:32] unknown at this time so I wasn't you know thinking hey I'll just give a bunch of my water away
[00:38:38] because you give a lot of money you got nothing and then you're struggling to keep up too so
[00:38:43] it's it was a bad situation and it was it was a hassle I think I might just have like peaked a
[00:38:48] little bit at least getting in the zone it was definitely border like but look I think the
[00:38:54] reality was you were helping reinforce the lesson that you got to have your gear square to
[00:38:59] away you got to be ready for a contingency like that because that happened all the time to us you
[00:39:04] know where we like hey this is going to be you know obviously we're in Ramadi and we're like hey
[00:39:08] this is gonna be a 24 hour operation like no now it's a 48 hour operation now it turns
[00:39:12] into 72 hour operation we're gonna we're gonna stay here longer than we thought so you got to have
[00:39:18] you got to be square to be thinking about that and you know thank god we had such awesome amazing
[00:39:24] leaders like like Tony a fratty you know there's been on this podcast and that people love
[00:39:28] and which is why we can say his name because otherwise we'd name off all the other guys that were
[00:39:33] out there good you know the LPO's that get after it the E5 mafia in there running things so yeah
[00:39:40] so it's the whole crew and that's exactly and just leaders at every level that were stepping
[00:39:45] up leading their fire teams leading their squad and I think that was the thing god I appreciate
[00:39:50] is as as as much as that sucked and as much as people were complaining about that at the time
[00:39:56] those kind of training scenarios where we didn't see it coming and it was a lot harder than we thought
[00:40:00] it was gonna be it got us ready you know to to for those those long range patrols in Ramadi and
[00:40:06] when we got there like you said we thought we all thought we're gonna drive and they were like we
[00:40:10] can't drive man as the best way to get killed if you don't try to drive into some of these areas so
[00:40:14] park your vehicles and walk in on foot and again we you know we learned we only had to carry the
[00:40:21] essential stuff but we also know we had to carry some firepower too because one of the things
[00:40:24] that we did in Ramadi was you know I think oftentimes special operators can get little spoiled where
[00:40:30] you know if you're going out on a mission and it's got some higher profile and you've got you know
[00:40:34] you've got aircraft supporting you and and you know you're gonna have all this you've got
[00:40:39] close air support set up where it's it's just dedicated to you you know and here we are we're you know
[00:40:44] we we had 40 seals and tasking at Roosers I'm leading a 16-man seal button and maybe a couple
[00:40:49] other augments you know with seals and our UD bomb disposal technicians and our Racky soldiers
[00:40:55] and we're just one tiny unit out of 5,600 troops that Marines and soldiers of the first brigade
[00:41:01] first armored division brigade combat team so there isn't dedicated aircraft to us you know there
[00:41:07] is an QRF that's a quick reaction for us that's dedicated just to us to come out.
[00:41:12] Yeah because on top of you you know we had our unit and just because you were out with your
[00:41:17] platoon in a firefight you were not the only game in town at that time there would be three or
[00:41:24] four other units somewhere else on the battlefield that were in a firefight maybe worse maybe
[00:41:28] not as bad but there was there was always someone that's called the QRF or that needs air support
[00:41:35] so it was exactly like you're saying we we weren't at the top of some food chain we were just
[00:41:40] in the in the food chain and had to learn how to mitigate that stuff by so so you know that
[00:41:46] massive loadout that you took and you were heavy you it's not like you said okay I'm not going
[00:41:50] to have to carry this stuff anymore you still had to bring it we had to make sure that that we
[00:41:55] carried our own firepower into those areas when in an area where we knew that the tanks may have a
[00:42:00] hard time getting in there to us even if even the emergency scenario and we didn't want to be
[00:42:05] overrun you know 50 enemy fires trying to overrun our position and we only had you know eight or 10 or
[00:42:10] 12 12 guys in this position with you know some Iraqi soldiers who were pretty much worthless
[00:42:14] when it came to to beating back an enemy attack like that so and then and by the way there were
[00:42:22] many positions the small positions snipers size elements that were overrun and dispend
[00:42:29] you know before we showed up there was an element that disappeared and they they found their
[00:42:33] bodies months later but you know same thing it was a smaller element of I don't know as five or six
[00:42:38] guys in a sniper type element they got overrun they didn't know no knew what happened to them
[00:42:43] and it happened to large fortified positions as well if you remember some of the checkpoints that
[00:42:48] were well fortified and built up and they got completely overrun by by by mouch and so yes my
[00:42:56] driving a big thousand pound VBID truck bomb in their position horrible we had to carry all kinds
[00:43:02] that fire power with us we had to carry on our back so the belt fed machine goes guys carrying
[00:43:06] those those the machine goes we're gonna beat back enemy attacks Carl Gustaf was was our shoulder fire
[00:43:13] right to recoil is 84 millimeter recoil is rifle it we use and it's heavy super heavy
[00:43:19] it's great against enemy tanks the the mouch didn't have any tanks so it was probably a lot
[00:43:28] heavier than what we needed our our leading petty officer would just man up BTF and carry that
[00:43:34] thing in and he figured out pretty quick though that I think the first time he tried to carry it in
[00:43:39] he's he would they were on a long range foot patrol and going in to an area that was this there
[00:43:44] was a rural area a little bit outside the city and so now you know we were used to patrol in the
[00:43:50] city streets in this rural area mc1 that was kind of out east of of Romadi now you're talking
[00:43:56] about patrolling in through farm fields and flooded flooded areas where you might be an ankle or
[00:44:02] knee deep mud it looked like Vietnam it looked like every every warm movie that you see about Vietnam
[00:44:08] in fact we used to call it the Vietnam the Iran that's what we call it and it was it was just like
[00:44:14] that I mean my first patrol that I went on out there were literally waiting through
[00:44:19] irrigated fields through mud and and waiting through canals because there's all these little
[00:44:23] canals are coming off the river to irrigate the fields and there was some marine support and so
[00:44:28] we had we had a Huey helicopter and a cobra gun ship which are Vietnam error platforms and I was like
[00:44:35] man am I right right there or Vietnam this is great there was there were people out till in the
[00:44:39] the fields with like a like an ox I mean it looked like something straight out of it was it was
[00:44:45] actually crazy out there and everyone how much it looked like Vietnam it was not it was nuts and it
[00:44:50] was not anything that we'd expected to do certainly so we just had to prepare for that
[00:44:54] contingency and and figure out a way to you know to operate in that environment and but you know our
[00:45:00] IPO is carrying that you know carrying that big man rocket but he recognized right away like
[00:45:06] initially he tried to carry some rounds in his backpack and you know each of I don't even know
[00:45:10] what this thing was but it's it's gotta be what it's gotta be I think the weapon itself probably weighs
[00:45:17] 25 25 pounds and each of the rounds because he got a way down to 10 to 12 pounds yeah and maybe 15
[00:45:23] pounds I don't know but so when you put that thing when you load that thing initially carried it
[00:45:29] and loaded and then put around his backpack and it just weighed him down he couldn't do it so
[00:45:34] you know it's hard keeping up so I recognize I'm gonna carry it empty I'll carry it in my hand
[00:45:38] I'll put one round of my back why could I can use and then we'll put another I always cared around
[00:45:43] for in my in my rock sack as well you know that I can hand off to those gunners if they needed it
[00:45:47] but that gave us some firepower to be able to to beat back an enemy attack and we had to carry
[00:45:52] that stuff in on herself so just it took you know one or two guys that could man up and and do that and
[00:45:56] our LPO was was the guy to beat you up with that yeah and you said if you needed it and you needed a lot
[00:46:01] because um you know I don't know if you remember this but you guys shot the six month load out of
[00:46:07] Carl Gustav rounds in about a week and a half so and then we had to borrow a bunch from the
[00:46:12] Rangers and we actually shot their load out too so it was awesome we actually got the cool Airburst
[00:46:17] rounds with the Rangers which was awesome yeah those are those are effective what does that mean
[00:46:22] Airburst Airburst means that it explodes over the top of so that guys are shooting at you
[00:46:28] from a rooftop right like and and they're hide my hand a wall you could like you can you can
[00:46:34] you can determine like how far they are and set a timer on there so it explodes over the top of
[00:46:39] them so it's pretty devastating it's pretty awesome we like they have a standing yeah
[00:46:44] T.T. Brisser got after with some Carl G rounds yeah that's kind of advanced though you know
[00:46:48] like technology wise where you can set how far you wanted to it is advanced it throws
[00:46:53] another kind of twist and you know you gotta yeah it's good to go I didn't like I didn't know
[00:46:58] it was like that well they have actually had airburst rounds for a really long time
[00:47:02] well we don't hear about them though yeah you know I mean I know it's a little advanced in
[00:47:06] the civilian sector I guess yeah it's pretty dope though that's good stuff alright I'm gonna go back to
[00:47:12] the book here taking turns they carried the big PRC 77 scramble or radio and interestingly
[00:47:22] if you remember when Andy Stumpf was just on we were talking about being new guys in the
[00:47:26] seal teams in the 90s we were still carrying the PRC 77 in our training operations which is pretty
[00:47:32] crazy we carried it butts there we did that for our our comps shots of us taking turns they
[00:47:38] carried the big PRC 77 scramble or radio which weighed 30 pounds with its battery they shared the
[00:47:45] weight of memory they took up what others could no longer bear often they carried each other
[00:47:54] the wounded or weak they carried infections they carried chest sets basket balls
[00:48:01] Vietnamese English dictionaries in Sydney as a rank bronze stars and purple hearts plastic
[00:48:07] cards imprinted with the code of conduct they carried diseases among them malaria and dysentery
[00:48:15] they carried lice and ringworm and leaches and patty algae and various rocks and molds
[00:48:25] they carried the land itself Vietnam the place the soil a powdery orange red dust that covered
[00:48:35] their boots and fatigues and faces they carried the sky the whole atmosphere they carried it
[00:48:45] the humidity the monsoons the stink of fungus and decay all of it they carried gravity
[00:48:54] what a great description coming that's just and that's why like I said even though this book
[00:49:04] is you know part fiction in a blend of truth and fiction that clearly is written by someone
[00:49:10] that was on the ground in Vietnam and there's a lot of similarities between that
[00:49:17] environment and the land itself and the atmosphere in Ramadi what do you think of when you
[00:49:26] think of the atmosphere in the land in Ramadi just listen to that and it just takes me right
[00:49:30] right back there you know to oh some no one could have been able to write that unless they'd been
[00:49:35] there you know unless they'd been a part of that and you know what that was like for us and
[00:49:41] the first thing I remember about about being in Ramadi is just the the stench you know there's something
[00:49:47] there's always the stench of something burning always the stench of something burning and whether
[00:49:52] it was civilians burning trash because there's no trash pick up in this total war zone city and
[00:49:57] you see these giant trash piles everywhere and so certainly there's the stench of that garbage all the
[00:50:02] time and but so they be burning trash and a lot of the burning was a burning vehicle in the street
[00:50:09] they got I did you know that was an explosion that went off that was that was a building that was
[00:50:14] on fire because the tanks hit it with a main gun round and you know or the bad guys had driven
[00:50:21] a truck bomb into the opposition and just just smoke in the air and I remember that that stench
[00:50:27] of burning and I remember the stench of the trash the garbage and and sewage raw sewage that was always
[00:50:35] a stench as well and I kind of takes me back there and the kind of he's in the air that you get
[00:50:40] I kind of Iraqi he's it's kind of like all those smells that you talk about it's kind of like
[00:50:46] war is hanging in the air because it's fire and it's gunpowder and it's trash and it's like that smell
[00:50:54] is war in my mind if I smelled that smell I'd think we're at war right now
[00:50:58] that sometimes if you know sometimes you'll smell a similar smell or things like that I was
[00:51:05] just kind of taking me right back to to be in that environment yeah those the stench I think is
[00:51:11] of that but it was it was also a stench that we loved as well because you know this is what we
[00:51:18] dreamed about our whole life and I remember Tony and I talking about that you know just just
[00:51:23] this is where we wanted to be right I mean every people in T. bruiser our our boys were ready
[00:51:29] to get after it and be a part of that and you know where else we want to want to be that in that
[00:51:36] incredibly difficult environment you know this most dangerous battlefield and we we wanted to be a
[00:51:42] part of that so it was that it was it's stonk but it was it was it was it was it was it was it
[00:51:46] right remember the first thing it was first big operation we did in the moolab and I'm rolling
[00:51:52] in there and it's it's dark and we kind of turned this main corner and as soon as we turn this
[00:51:57] main corner there's there's tires in the street on fire and you know so you I could smell it before
[00:52:04] but I was like what's that well am I smelling burning tires and bruiser enough we turned the
[00:52:07] corner and it screws up your night vision goggles because now they're getting all blood out by the
[00:52:11] bright light and and then as the sun's coming up a little bit you see the dark smoke and
[00:52:18] I remember that to me I don't know why but that to me was the switch in my mind because
[00:52:24] because there's that was the first because in my first big operation that was the first thing
[00:52:29] that I said to myself those are the bad guys though the bad guys did that they're here they were
[00:52:36] just there you know it's like my first moment of saying that and it's also very distracting and
[00:52:41] hard to see and all that other stuff and and I remember when I was running training and we would do
[00:52:46] mounts and areas my one of my big things you know I say all right guys how many tires you can put
[00:52:50] out the burn and and I remember one time someone's like you know what I'm gonna do the tires tonight
[00:52:55] and I said no we're doing the tires tonight always set tires on fire let that be known
[00:53:01] because it screws things up and I think it was just my own personal desire to be taken back to
[00:53:10] that place like you were just talking about well I remember those mounts and areas going out
[00:53:13] there with you you know you're running that training when I was at you know when I was at
[00:53:17] operations officer and executive officer at the sealed team and it took me right back there
[00:53:21] and to me the smell that you know the the stench would hear the the call the prayer you know
[00:53:26] comes out you'd see the graffiti walls and it was it was it was so much like that and it was awesome
[00:53:32] you know it was awesome you know it was a great vision on out in our when we really got after
[00:53:37] it with the mount training facility and really did everything we could dissimulate what the guys
[00:53:41] were gonna experience man you couldn't you couldn't tell actually you could you if you if you
[00:53:45] you got transplanted you wouldn't be because we did the even the because in Ramadi all the
[00:53:50] electrical wires were all knocked down so we'd string these crazy wires up just randomly in our
[00:53:56] in the streets to make it look because guess what you'd be running it could caught up in this
[00:54:00] wire and you got to make sure it's not an IED so you can't just pull you know it's all these
[00:54:04] little things to simulate as best you can but thank god you didn't have the rivers of Ross who
[00:54:10] is running to the streets so I'm trying to want to allow our guys to slip and fall down into
[00:54:15] or to just horrible I had one of my first deployment this guy was walking and I don't know what this
[00:54:20] was but we were just walking in all of a sudden he walked and he fell through it was like there
[00:54:27] was a hardened shell and he fell through this hardened shell right into a sewage pit and
[00:54:33] all of the or because all of I don't know what the shell was made of but it was we know it was
[00:54:39] under it it was nasty there was a big metal pipe across across you remember we called it shit
[00:54:46] creek that was actually the official name on the map because it was literally like a creek of
[00:54:50] raw sewage and there was a big metal pipe and we often patrol across this pipe you know it was
[00:54:55] the one where you did not have to jump it you got actually just walk across and later actually
[00:55:01] uh some of the army you guys had burned the grass out there and there were there were IEDs all
[00:55:05] around we didn't even know we're there when we first patroled in but one guy was with us he slipped
[00:55:10] off the pipe and fell into the fell into a shit creek which and now you know he's he's got to
[00:55:17] be in that uniform for the next stuff it's only a 48 hour operation no doubt no shower no shower
[00:55:23] for good 24 48 hours that's good to have so I think the one thing missing too from you know from
[00:55:30] uh that we couldn't recreate in that in that mountain area that you were running it was it was
[00:55:34] so awesome but the just the heat like the the heat was overwhelming and I think that's that's what
[00:55:40] really got guys even guys that were in really good shape you who were you know great athletes
[00:55:46] if you weren't a climate ties to that did it just didn't matter until you really got a climate ties
[00:55:52] it would crush you and I remember that going in you know even like I said at night time it's still
[00:55:57] like 95 degrees outside and you know when the sun's coming up there'd be a little bit of breeze
[00:56:01] kind of the early morning you get a little bit of coolness and we're talking it's like high 90s right
[00:56:07] but you know it's gonna hit 117 you know for the high that day and you're sitting on the rooftop
[00:56:12] and my my rucksack is still covered with tar where you know the the tar starts creeping out of the
[00:56:19] rooftop and just melting into your bag and sticking on your weapon and your gear and your uniforms now
[00:56:26] I sweat a lot like I I'm a sweat I sweat a lot as a person I remember but I remember one time
[00:56:32] and it wasn't when we did cop falcon the first time but it wasn't when they had air conditioning
[00:56:36] in there yet it was like in one of those inter between ops and I was down there you guys went out
[00:56:40] you guys were working and I was in there cop falcon and and I had come down in a Bradley or
[00:56:45] in a Humvee Bradley's or a Humvee their whole hot but but then I got in the building and I was
[00:56:51] coordinating with you know the the company commander and I'm sitting there and now I'm not doing
[00:56:57] now I haven't been doing anything physical in fact I I think I was inside with with my gear off just
[00:57:02] with my body armor but I'm just sitting there and and I'm sitting there like looking at a battle map
[00:57:08] and it's just me no one's with me I'm just looking at the battle map I think I'm trying to talk
[00:57:12] to you you're probably heading out in the city and you're going somewhere and I'm looking at where you are
[00:57:15] and there is a stream of sweat I'm not doing anything I'm just literally sitting looking at
[00:57:21] a map and there is a of sweat coming off of my nose onto the onto the battle map and I thought to
[00:57:26] place myself bro it's hot here well and you were in the shade then and no this was this was at
[00:57:34] night you had a night like we came down at night you guys inserted and I was just sitting there
[00:57:39] so I've been sitting there for a minute and that's one thing that I always know this is the hottest
[00:57:43] time of day in the desert is when the sun goes down I don't know if this is a true physics thing
[00:57:49] if you're a scientist and you want to come back at me with the facts maybe I'm wrong but let me
[00:57:53] tell you what it feels like and I say this the heat comes out of the ground so all that sun's been
[00:57:59] beaten down the ground all day the heat comes out of the ground and then the wind stops and so it's
[00:58:05] just that is the hottest time it's true here in the southern California desert and it was true when
[00:58:09] I racked that the hottest few hours was after the sun goes down like the next two to three hours is
[00:58:15] the worst absolutely brutal on on that that same operation I remember we were we were running
[00:58:20] on a water because we know we were out we had moved out 300 you know 300 yards or so down the street
[00:58:26] and set up in that big four story apartment building and we were running on a water so we had to do
[00:58:32] so I remember we're doing a daytime I was like we got a couple guys we had a stretcher
[00:58:36] we had a foldable like Israeli stretcher that we we opened up and me and and through
[00:58:41] other guys are sprinting down the street because we know there's snipers out here I mean we're right
[00:58:46] and they you know we're outside the perimeter and we're running back to where you were at the
[00:58:50] copfalk and and we loaded up a bunch of case of water and there's worries and then we're sprinting back
[00:58:55] and I remember getting back from that you know and that we did that like it's probably like two
[00:58:58] o'clock in the afternoon and it's literally like 117, 120 degrees and I was of course we had our gear on
[00:59:04] and we did we're doing this 300 yards for that Karen a stretcher that probably weighs like 150 pounds
[00:59:09] we were bringing enough water for like 20 guys and it you know and food and it was I don't
[00:59:15] think I I mean I look like I just got out of the shower for just sweating and all your gear and
[00:59:21] a lot of our eyebrow you know there was the requirement you had to wear eyebrow eye protection
[00:59:26] so either like ballistic glasses or and on what guys said we were in previously was the goggles
[00:59:31] that you wear to protect your eyes you couldn't wear it because if you had it on it would be
[00:59:36] completely fogged up and you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you and I was like okay I can
[00:59:40] protect my eyes or I can like get shot and kill their trip over something not be able to get
[00:59:44] ready to go and you yeah because you would be completely blended by the the fog and nothing
[00:59:51] where we try to get the high speed once with like the little same thing it's you know talk
[00:59:55] what's about high tech here's some high tech we got these goggles that had to be miniature fans
[01:00:01] in them the blow fresh air in there they just suck it all everything sucks nothing works
[01:00:07] like windshield like personally that's what you need something that was another little
[01:00:11] TBR team bruiser saying everything sucks nothing works you know because someone is like hey man
[01:00:17] hey you know this this thing's not working I get everything sucks nothing works deal with it you
[01:00:21] know everything sucks nothing works next we know that it's a given everything sucks nothing works
[01:00:27] BTF BTF BTF BTF and it's actually we talked about the heat but you know we didn't talk about
[01:00:32] is the damn moon dust because you know he's talking about their then orange red dust the moon
[01:00:39] dust and Ramadi was nasty and gnarly and it was everywhere I remember it's specifically
[01:00:46] Craig and Orr was completely covered which was the the camp on the eastern side of Ramadi
[01:00:51] where the first the 506 was there and then we had a detachment of seals there and when you'd go
[01:00:57] over there it was just it was totally every step you took there was a pfff even trails that were
[01:01:03] getting walked on all day to the head or to the chow haul even those trails that were walked
[01:01:07] on every single day every it didn't matter every time you took a step there's a little cloud burst
[01:01:12] of this moon dust this fine fine moon dust that covered everything anyways all over the city too
[01:01:18] it was like talcobatter and it was you know those tanks would come in they crunch up the concrete
[01:01:22] so even if it was even if it had been previously paved now you're gonna you got you got sand you
[01:01:28] know dirt and and and it just I remember it getting in everything so we put park our vehicles I
[01:01:34] remember it particular to combat was grant you know riding the part of just south central
[01:01:38] Ramadi and it was patrone out of there you're in like knee deep moon dust so you know now and and
[01:01:45] that we're patrone out into a cypher over watch position moving out nighttime and not always
[01:01:48] it dusty and getting all over stuff it gets in your weapons and and you know you have to
[01:01:52] constantly clean them and and but I remember we get to where we were going you know get into
[01:01:58] a watch position and you don't have to take your boots off and just dump out like a pound of sand
[01:02:04] of that moon dust that got inside your boots that it got in through the little holes in your
[01:02:09] little tiny tiny holes on your jungle what is moon dust that just it does that happen yeah
[01:02:14] it's this fine fine fine it's like life's that it's like talcobatter but it's dirt it's some kind of
[01:02:21] fine fine sand again I'm sure there's some scientists that's gonna say that what it specifically is
[01:02:26] but far as I'm concerned it's moon dust and it's working for this is it we're not talking about like
[01:02:30] uh at on the beach you know in Hawaii we talk and then this is like you if you walk through
[01:02:35] this stuff it's all over you it gets everywhere there's literally walking through it and there's
[01:02:39] like a cloud of dust coming from you it's so fine oh yeah when it's getting there would drive by
[01:02:44] it's getting there would drive by it's getting there would drive by it's getting there would drive by
[01:02:46] or something it'd be just a jibis walking and you you're just breathing this moon dust in
[01:02:50] and it's and it's it's below your nose and it's just always like it's the color of the moon
[01:02:55] dust is weird yeah like when you um you right dirt bikes or something in a more of a dry area
[01:03:02] I mean obviously I'm sure it's way worse and you know in a reminder but same thing when you breathe
[01:03:07] yeah and just dirt you breathe it in your cough it's gonna be everywhere yeah below your nose just that
[01:03:13] just how it is over there just it was all just everywhere good times
[01:03:17] I'm taking this back to the book they moved like mules by daylight they took sniper fire at
[01:03:27] night they were mortored but it was not battle it was just the endless march village to village
[01:03:34] without purpose nothing one or lost they marched for the sake of the march they plotted along
[01:03:43] slowly, dumbling, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking all blood and bone, simple grunts,
[01:03:50] soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the patties and across the rivers
[01:03:57] and up and down again just pumping one step and then the next and then another but no
[01:04:04] volition no will because it was automatic it was anatomy and the war was entirely a matter of
[01:04:13] posture and courage the hump was everything a kind of inertia a kind of emptiness,
[01:04:19] a doneness of desire and intellect and conscious and hope and human sensibility
[01:04:27] their principles were in their feet their calculations were biological they had no sense of
[01:04:35] strategy or mission they searched the villages without knowing what to look for not caring
[01:04:41] kicking over jars of rice frisking children and old men blowing tunnels sometimes settings fires
[01:04:47] and sometimes not then forming up and moving on to the next village then other villages where
[01:04:52] it would always be the same they carried their own lives the pressures were enormous
[01:05:03] in the heat of early afternoon they would remove their helmets and flat jackets walking bear
[01:05:10] which was dangerous but which helped ease the strain now that that section obviously
[01:05:22] paints something different than what we experienced because and you can see what he's talking
[01:05:28] about you know you've got soldiers that don't know what the mission is that don't understand
[01:05:32] what the strategy is and you know there's all kinds of books about Vietnam and and at the highest
[01:05:38] you know we talk about sometimes how maybe we didn't do a good job of telling people what the
[01:05:43] strategy was but at the highest levels in the Vietnam war there's confusion on what the strategy
[01:05:49] just so there's no way that some frontline grunt understands why he's clearing this village and
[01:05:56] not that village or why it's that village and not this village they just don't know so what is it
[01:05:59] become it becomes like they're just robots human robots moving forward and I think we were very
[01:06:10] fortunate to be in a situation where you know we had a better understanding and again we talk about
[01:06:16] this in the book we could have done a better job it should have done a better job of making sure
[01:06:20] that everybody understood more but there was an understanding there was that a minimum
[01:06:27] everybody understood at a minimum the evil that was there the evil that was there in Ramadi
[01:06:35] in Iraq that was torturing people raping people killing people trying to enslave people
[01:06:41] everybody understood that there was evil there and that's what we were fighting against
[01:06:46] trying to help this local populist who was completely at the mercy
[01:06:52] of this insurgent group which by the way had no mercy so I think we had that benefit for us
[01:07:02] but one thing that is completely unchanged is this talk of this strain the strain that is put
[01:07:13] on the soldiers on the ground and when you think back to the strain that you felt that your
[01:07:20] men felt what do you think of what do you think of when you think of the strain I can absolutely
[01:07:28] relate to that I mean it's it's the it's something you and I talked about right when we got home
[01:07:34] when we got home it was you called it the burden right when we got we got home and
[01:07:43] we didn't even recognize how powerful that was you know I'm never talking to you about it we were like
[01:07:47] we all the sudden we could relax like there weren't we're people trying to kill us right there
[01:07:53] there were when we arrived back from that deployment to Ramadi and we're back in San Diego
[01:07:58] and and you and just the recognition that it's not just from our personal like hey people are
[01:08:04] trying to kill me but like I no longer am carrying the burden of the decisions that I make and
[01:08:12] people's lives are on the line right that like at this moment right now and I want to make sure
[01:08:16] that I've thought through all the contenders you know are we ready you know for for these worst
[01:08:22] case scenarios have we have we planned you know have we rehearsed these things have we tried have we
[01:08:26] thought what the enemy might do how could they hit us where we had even for senior you know that
[01:08:30] that burden that you just carried all the time and and for me you know man after after Mark
[01:08:35] I killed and Ryan got wounded it was just you know four months in our deployment it was just this
[01:08:42] recognition like man we're that can happen at any time and I knew it could happen at any time
[01:08:47] but prior to that you know it wasn't that we got complacent or that but it but it was we've
[01:08:51] gotten away with so many times that you all you you start kind of kind of see like maybe we can
[01:08:56] make it through this thing you know without losing people as is and just going out there and
[01:09:03] you know as you've talked about you can just only get lucky so many times like with all that evil
[01:09:08] and all that horribleness out there that that it can happen at any time and and that's the
[01:09:15] strain that I think that I certainly I feel the for other guys felt when you see that your your
[01:09:19] brothers killed or wounded when you've had close calls and you recognize like just how how close
[01:09:29] we are to death at any time any time we're rolling out there that that is the strain it is a
[01:09:36] strain on you and it's something that we're on you and I think for me it was just always always
[01:09:44] worried about like just the and when you see the violence of it you know the the vehicle graveyard
[01:09:50] that we rolled out through every time we're driving out the gate and just the twisted
[01:09:54] hawks of metal that used to be a vehicle that carried men or women in them you know and those
[01:10:01] were U.S. troops that were either killed or horribly wounded that were in that vehicle that were destroyed
[01:10:07] or if you see an ID go off and there's a hundred foot fireball in the air and just
[01:10:11] frag the metal fragments raining down you know for hundreds of yards and all directions
[01:10:18] from something like that like just the power of that you know the the violence of machine gun fire
[01:10:22] that's coming in close to you and now I often describe it's just the you know I wrote about in the book
[01:10:27] the the biggest strongest guy you can imagine just smashing the wall with a hammer next to you
[01:10:32] as hard as you can on the edge from your head and it's from your head just throwing concrete
[01:10:36] fragments everywhere and there's and you know now it's seven to eight hundred rounds per minute
[01:10:43] of that coming in at you with a belt fit belt fit machine gun maybe there's multiple once you
[01:10:48] net you RPG rockets just this rocking explosion this rings your bell you know even if it's just
[01:10:54] just on the wall outside you know if one of those things hits the window and and and detonates
[01:10:59] on the bars on the window it's going to just frag everybody in the room it's going to be horribly
[01:11:04] wounded or killed so that that was a strain all the time and and I think the difference for us though is
[01:11:09] is the you know and and you know there isn't there were some certainly some guys and you
[01:11:15] talk about leadership that we learn right get the guys carrying those heavy machine guns the the
[01:11:18] belt fit machine guns and all the gear that with them and they're like man do I have to carry
[01:11:22] this thing you know as a leader we had to remind them why that was important you know they
[01:11:26] got that love hate relationship the machine gun or stay loved the shoot that machine gun and they're
[01:11:30] awesome at it they hate to carry the machine gun right it's a it's that love hate relationship and
[01:11:35] so when they're going in on a full patrol that's a you know a mile full you know mile and a half
[01:11:39] full patrol into a tough area in their care and all the heavyweight they get focused on that so you
[01:11:44] got you got to help them recognize like this is this is why you're such a critical part of the
[01:11:48] team and why we got to have these machine guns so you got to do you know as a leader or something
[01:11:52] we had to do all the time but I think for these guys in Vietnam they're you know they're driving
[01:11:57] or flying into an area but shown in Toneira that's it seems like they're seeing they're seeing
[01:12:01] new terrain all the time you know for us in Ramadi it was this tiny city that was it's like what
[01:12:07] three by three miles you know across you're talking about just the central central Ramadi piece of
[01:12:12] it very small and we're going into the same area is all the time you know jay street the jay block you know
[01:12:18] pop a ten you know these areas that going down baseline road and you know to 20th street in these
[01:12:24] areas that we we got to know and we understood you know where the the the the the bad guys are operating
[01:12:29] out of and we've been in so many of these buildings and we so then we had to have the we had to mix it
[01:12:33] up and not patrol down the same streets every time and try to come in and do some misdirection stuff
[01:12:37] but we got to know these areas and you know even though it was a small area you know these tanks
[01:12:43] might be less than a mile away from you maybe they're even a half a mile down the road you know
[01:12:48] in that environment if there's if there's you know 35 ID's that could destroy anyone of which could
[01:12:54] destroy the tank between you and them half a mile away they might as well be a hundred miles away
[01:13:00] doesn't matter so you know we had to plan for those continues we had to be ready but that it was a
[01:13:05] strange I certainly remember well and and I remember that conversation as I'm sure you do come
[01:13:09] back and and recognize them like well I didn't even realize how heavy that strange was until we
[01:13:15] got back and it was it was lifted you know it didn't it didn't happen right away it happened
[01:13:21] like we were at least I feel like we were conditioned it would be it would be like going to a planet
[01:13:29] where there was much much higher gravity and you don't even realize how much more weight you're
[01:13:34] carrying and then when we came home it wasn't like it instantly the gravity changed it was like
[01:13:38] it slowly and one day yeah for me it was about a month that I I obviously I woke up and instead of
[01:13:45] the first thought I had when I woke up of like what's gonna happen today what bad thing can happen
[01:13:51] today it was like I think the waves look good and I'm going surfing and did go from that thought
[01:13:58] process from like you said it's the horror of the of the imminent danger because like
[01:14:10] like you said you can only get lucky so many times and you go out day after day after day and you got
[01:14:17] watching guys all over my guys all over a body there's no possible way that they can make
[01:14:24] it through today without taking a casualty and then they and then they make it through that day I
[01:14:29] got five elements three elements five elements two elements all out on the battlefield the same
[01:14:34] time there's no way they're gonna make it through today without a casualty they make it through today
[01:14:39] and guess what you wake up the next day and now you're carrying that day and today
[01:14:45] so you make it through that day now you're carrying three days and that just built and built
[01:14:49] and every once in a while obviously we would take a casualty and maybe you get a little reset
[01:14:56] but you don't it's just there and it's there heavy all the time and what's really interesting about
[01:15:01] this is you might be thinking as life explain you explain you know those feelings and I was
[01:15:08] I'm talking about right now you might think that we were solid and worried and swed and panicking or
[01:15:16] but but I'm sitting here thinking about it we would and everybody in the in the task unit
[01:15:22] we were having fun we were laughing we would have conversations we make fun of each other we'd
[01:15:26] make fun of our friends we'd make fun of our boss we'd make fun of everybody we'd laugh we'd have a
[01:15:30] great time and the the the the strain even though there's there's you know fun and good times on
[01:15:39] top of it that strain is absolutely there and it stays there in the whole time and it just builds
[01:15:44] I think the big illustration for that to me was when an operation was going on right and vehicles
[01:15:51] were lined up like get you know the vehicles are lined up out on the we had this that main street you
[01:15:55] know outside of the the the the talk tactical operations center and you know where your office was and
[01:16:01] and I remember that that bond that we had an in task unit bruiser you know so often you get what the
[01:16:06] seals are doing their thing and you got the support personnel that are running the radios and the
[01:16:11] C.B.s that run the cabinet they just do different stuff and they don't you know what was so awesome
[01:16:16] about task in bruiser was like you lined those trucks up and we know we're going out you know we're
[01:16:19] going out at operation and and if you were weren't if you weren't coming on the op I know you would
[01:16:25] you would always be out there you know out there shaking everybody's hands and talking to him and
[01:16:29] and not in a way of like you know not in a way that there was more bit right but in a way of like
[01:16:34] just the respects and knowledge that any time we're going out like any one time there may be
[01:16:43] there may be any of these guys that are all now may not become a back from this they may be coming
[01:16:47] back in a body back and and that we had to be ready for that at all the time because it was almost a
[01:16:52] daily daily thing and I just not you know for for you and the the support personnel the
[01:16:58] comms guys you know our our our radio when that route there these aren't seals and they're
[01:17:01] but they're out there getting the radio is ready and helping us out people just come you know
[01:17:06] you know our our our operation specialist you know chief coming out there I remember all those
[01:17:11] guys just lined up shaking hands talking to people it was just that and for the few opposite you know
[01:17:16] that I didn't go on with another another another if we had something else going on and another
[01:17:20] you know it's going out with our guys on a different operation I'm not a part of the same thing like
[01:17:24] going out there talking those guys shaking their hands and knowing that like they may not be coming
[01:17:28] back from that and I think that was the biggest that was the biggest to me like illustration of
[01:17:33] like that strain and again we laughed we joke there wasn't there was nothing more bit we were
[01:17:38] telling jokes and laughing and kidding each other but but that was really there and I remember we got
[01:17:44] relieved you know by the next seal team tilting father came in and you know good good
[01:17:50] bros of mine that I'd serve with that because I'd come from tilting five and new those guys when
[01:17:56] they were going out to you know I knew what they were going out into you know and I just remember
[01:18:01] going out there for that goodbye to them and shaking their hands and talking them back because
[01:18:05] we knew exactly what they were going into and they're going to keep keeping it an effort
[01:18:09] there was one of the hard memories when those guys came and I was doing like the turnover brief
[01:18:15] to their whole troop and I was you know I had a sign I put a sign up and it was going through this
[01:18:21] and that and the other thing and I'm like okay you guys are going to take casualties and and
[01:18:29] like I never fought in a million years that somebody would be briefing me hey you guys are going to
[01:18:36] take casualties and I'm like oh you guys might hate dangerous it looks like you guys are going to take
[01:18:42] casualties that is what is going to happen and that might sound negative but that was the facts that
[01:18:48] it was a hundred percent true that they were going to take casualties and we knew it we knew it and
[01:18:53] that's what was so hard to shake their hand and tell them goodbye and good luck and and watch them
[01:19:00] roll out for the first time alone without us and know that could be tonight and could be tonight
[01:19:19] I'm new uh hit one hit another section right now
[01:19:24] this is talking about talking about the men again
[01:19:34] going to the book for the most part they carried themselves with poise
[01:19:42] a kind of dignity now and then however there were times of panic when they squealed or wanted
[01:19:50] to squeal but couldn't when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said
[01:19:55] dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and
[01:20:00] sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves
[01:20:06] and to God and to their mothers and fathers hoping not to die
[01:20:11] and back to what we were just talking about
[01:20:24] to have guys and you know we did a podcast about a guy named Colonel DePique and his
[01:20:31] his book called Battle Studies and when he describes men and one of his key points is he saying
[01:20:41] that men are horrified and they're scared of death and that they have this just incredible
[01:20:54] obviously this underlying the will of self preservation right that's the that's the
[01:21:01] thing that fuels people and he just talks about this tiny percentage of men that will overcome
[01:21:09] that and they'll be brave and to think that we were lucky enough to serve with guys in our
[01:21:18] task unit and to see the next task unit come in and to see the soldiers and see the marines
[01:21:25] to overcome that strain on a daily basis that is absolutely one of the most humbling things
[01:21:36] that I think I will ever experience in my life that's what that's what courage all about you know
[01:21:43] I think just to to see guys you know that are just in the thick of the fight with bullets
[01:21:52] missing their heads by inches you know I remember our member on the rooftop of building 99 right
[01:22:01] on 20th street in the world we were getting hammered I mean enemy rounds coming in by hundreds
[01:22:06] and hundreds of rounds coming in shattered windows and I remember our EOD bomb disposal technician
[01:22:12] awesome awesome guys he's he's laying on the rooftop and there's armor piercing rounds coming
[01:22:17] through the roof punching through concrete wall you know that's just like three inches over his head
[01:22:24] and he's just laying there and and I remember crawling up there trying to figure out he's there
[01:22:28] by okay and he's like looking at me like thumbs up laughing about it and I'm just the humor of those
[01:22:32] guys right dealing with that and no one you know again that that could happen at any time but you know
[01:22:39] just seeing the guys guys like Mark Lear I just the most hilarious guy you could imagine just
[01:22:44] cracking jokes you know and singing the you know the cheeseball 80s tunes you know I am the warrior
[01:22:51] and and the us laughing about and talking about that stuff and just just that's how they dealt with you
[01:22:57] know and and but it just tremendous courage and you know not just our seals not just guys that
[01:23:02] that we were with those those Marines and the soldiers that we serve alongside and just
[01:23:07] watching those guys day in and day out you know who often didn't have as much control over what they were
[01:23:13] doing as we did you know down at the frontline level but just out there getting after it
[01:23:20] with a great attitude and you know nobody's fearless right nobody you know some people think
[01:23:25] oh the you know we get that question all the time right from business like well it's you know it's
[01:23:31] more models are you know fearful but you guys are fearless like no nobody's fearless like you
[01:23:36] you recognize how mortal you are and that can happen at time and yet you see these guys just
[01:23:41] just totally selfless you know courage or just incredible courage to overcome that and just amazing
[01:23:47] I mean that's that's really to me that is the that is the bright light you know that we brought back
[01:23:54] from you know from that conflict to see and witness that and just the tremendous human spirit
[01:23:59] that can overcome anything indeed we're gonna kind of wrap up this section right now with one
[01:24:10] last little piece of the book here and this is one of the guys named Lavender last name Lavender
[01:24:17] he gets killed and the lieutenant takes the blame himself he feels that that blame
[01:24:27] and part of it he kind of blames on his his thinking about his girl back home marthun he's
[01:24:35] thinking he wasn't doing everything he could do and what could he have done better and where did
[01:24:42] he let his guys down and what he could do different from now on and I'm going to the book
[01:24:49] he loved her but he hated her no more fantasies he told himself hence forth when he thought about
[01:25:01] martha it would be only to think that she belonged elsewhere he would shut down the day dreams this was
[01:25:10] not Mount Sebastian it was another world where there were no pretty poems or midterm exams a place
[01:25:18] where men died because of carelessness and gross stupidity Kayao was right boom down
[01:25:28] and you would dead never partly dead briefly in the rain lieutenant cross saw martha's gray eyes
[01:25:39] gazing back at him he understood it was very sad he thought the things men carried inside
[01:25:50] the things men did or felt they had to do he almost nodded at her but he didn't
[01:26:00] instead he went back to his maps he was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence
[01:26:10] it wouldn't help Lavender he knew that but from this point on he would comport himself as an officer
[01:26:17] he would dispose of his good luck pebble swallow it maybe or use least drunk slingshot or just drop it
[01:26:26] along the trail on the march he would impose strict field discipline he would be careful to send
[01:26:35] out flanks security to prevent straggling or bunching up to keep his troops moving at the proper
[01:26:40] pace and at the proper interval he would insist on clean weapons he would confiscate the remainder
[01:26:47] of Lavender's dope later in the day perhaps he would call them men together and speak to them
[01:26:55] plainly he would accept the blame for what had happened to Ted Lavender he would be a man about it
[01:27:03] he would look them in the eyes keeping his chin level and he would issue new SOPs in a
[01:27:10] calm interpersonal tone of voice a lieutenant's voice leaving no room for argument or discussion
[01:27:21] commencing immediately he'd tell them they would no longer abandon equipment along the route of
[01:27:26] march they would police up their acts they would get their shit together and keep it together
[01:27:32] and maintain it neatly in a good working order he would not tolerate laxity he would show strength
[01:27:45] distancing himself
[01:27:47] so he falls back on what we fall back on all the time on discipline on standard operating procedures
[01:28:04] on maintaining everything in good working order and one of the things that you can see here in
[01:28:10] people we get this to is you'd think these guys from Vietnam of course they're going to be
[01:28:20] paying attention of course they're going to keep the weapon keeps you alive in a firefight
[01:28:23] of course you're going to keep your weapons clean but he has the leader he has to lead
[01:28:33] and I think that's a common misconception and we do talk about it all the time and just one of the
[01:28:38] most frequent questions I get asked like well you know in the sealed teams you've got everyone's
[01:28:43] motivated and in every one's focus and it's a life for death you know so they're going to stay
[01:28:47] sharp and they're going to fall a procedure no matter what and you know my my team's not like that
[01:28:51] in the business world or you know people I work with aren't like that and the best teams
[01:28:59] they only fall that procedure right because they've got leaders that are stepping up and making
[01:29:04] it happen and and look we have some amazing people in the sealed teams just like we have some
[01:29:09] amazing people in the military in army and marine units and other special operations units etc but
[01:29:17] even with life or death online people get complacent people start letting the ball drop
[01:29:22] not clean in their weapons when they need to or not fall in a procedure or let in their guard down
[01:29:27] because well we've done this operation it does in times and nothing bad's happened so
[01:29:31] nothing bad's gonna happen right that's it's like this common human emotion that you just
[01:29:36] make these assumptions and so the only way that units are going to stay focused and not have
[01:29:42] that happen when they've got good leaders they got a fire team leader in charge of his four
[01:29:46] guys to step up and make sure that his guys are squirt away and stay in focus they've got to
[01:29:50] you know they've got a squad leader making sure that his squad is squirt the LPO leading pet officers
[01:29:55] out there make sure that guys are dialed they're not cutting corners I mean I always saw that with
[01:29:59] guys you know we've been these type of Overwatch positions you got like some of them had like one
[01:30:03] stairwell in and out and someone's gonna watch that stairwell someone's got to have a weapon and
[01:30:08] look down that stairwell for 72 hours yeah and so you know hopefully we could rotate some guys out
[01:30:12] so it's not just the same guy but but even so if you're it's gonna be several hours you
[01:30:17] watching down that stairwell and it's boring as well right and guess what you're the only guy
[01:30:23] watching that stairwell and everyone else has got their backs to you so if you're not doing your
[01:30:27] job you're gonna get those people get shot in the back and yet if what happens hey we I've been
[01:30:32] here I've been on the stairwell we look man doesn't we don't this operation doesn't times or
[01:30:36] we've been in this building multiple times nobody's ever come up to stairs I've been sitting here
[01:30:41] for hours on in like hasn't happened so people will fall asleep people will stop paying attention
[01:30:47] and only if you've got good leaders who are gonna go check on that guy and make sure that he
[01:30:52] recognizes that listen everybody's dependent on you you know not only you're gonna get killed
[01:30:57] if someone slips up the stairs but the guys people are gonna get shot in the back and yet they
[01:31:00] were dependent on you to have their back and it requires those good leaders at every level
[01:31:04] stepping up and going and checking on that guy and if he is tired you can't say what rotating
[01:31:08] out put somebody else in there but it requires leadership at every level so even with life and
[01:31:13] death in a line people get complacent and this really goes to what you know you and I talk about
[01:31:17] all the time which is what does it really mean to take care of your people you know that year
[01:31:22] well I want to be liked you know so I don't want to be a real hard ass and I don't want to you
[01:31:27] know I don't want to like you know I don't want to push too hard in that direction or like
[01:31:32] if they cut this corner maybe it's not that big of a deal and obviously you can go too far
[01:31:36] in that direction right but you become the slave driver but but are you really taking care
[01:31:40] of your people if you're allowing them to cut some corners that they shouldn't be you know are
[01:31:45] to get complacent when they shouldn't be and the answer is no of course not you're setting them up
[01:31:50] for failure and so you as a leader have got to step up and make sure that you're you know the
[01:31:56] peers around you if you're not a leadership position it would certainly as a leader make sure
[01:32:00] that your team and those around you are toe in the line and fall in those standard operating
[01:32:04] procedures and and achieve in that high standard possible because that's what is going to
[01:32:09] allow them to stay alive on the battlefield and ultimately accomplish the mission and certainly
[01:32:14] dominated win on their battlefield anywhere you know in business and life yeah you can definitely see
[01:32:20] that all the things that lieutenant cross rattles off that he's going to now start imposing
[01:32:28] he's going to start taking care he thought he was taking care of his men before
[01:32:32] by by letting them have dirty weapons and not hound and move about that by letting them drop
[01:32:36] gear on the trail by not sending out flanks care because it's a pain in the ass he thought he was
[01:32:41] taking care of his guys and he got one of his guys killed and that is exactly the point
[01:32:48] when you're taking care of your people that means you're taking care of them that means you're
[01:32:52] holding the line you're holding the discipline and you're making sure that they are
[01:32:58] as safe as you can possibly make them while still a couple of them in the mission
[01:33:02] and that is the pretty much what we had for this book by the way again it's called Tim O'Brien,
[01:33:16] the name of the book is called The Things They Carried definitely a solid read and I would check it
[01:33:23] out and echo all of them have it up on the on the website and yeah I know for those of you
[01:33:29] they're going to combat me and say it was a fiction book so now you're going to start submitting
[01:33:34] to me every fiction war book that's ever been written I don't know there's some damn good ones
[01:33:39] out there and there's probably someone going to end up doing but yeah this is one of them
[01:33:43] that is and again it's it's it's fiction but clearly it's based on the experiences and
[01:33:50] it and and once again you can see that even though war evolves and war changes the fundamental
[01:34:00] the fundamentals of human nature in war don't really change I'm not in the fiction books I
[01:34:09] don't remember the last time I read a fiction book I'm going to read that book because that
[01:34:12] immediately resonated with me and puts me back in those just the sights and smells and the
[01:34:18] stuff that we carried and opens up so you know it's just I look I like forward to digging into it
[01:34:23] and some detail and you know that's the thing when when you are dealing with these books
[01:34:30] and you start to really really listen to them and read them there's just there's always so much more
[01:34:38] than then you get out of it the first time you go through it so that's why for me
[01:34:44] you know reading it and then going through it again and then sitting here and reading it and now
[01:34:50] when I put the headphones on and read it it's it definitely they definitely hit you and you get
[01:34:54] more out of them in my opinion no doubt there's something magical about putting the headphones on
[01:34:59] you know because you you had read a couple of those excerpts when we were talking about this over
[01:35:02] last couple of days and what the podcast is going to be about and it did not you know once
[01:35:07] sitting here listening to you read it with the headphones on it's like it takes me immediately
[01:35:12] back to her body thinking about the stuff that we you know the things that we carried with us
[01:35:16] and the moon dust that we've been told doing those smells and stenches and the heat and
[01:35:21] frankly I'm I'm pretty eager to go back and get some right now I'm ready to make it happen indeed
[01:35:26] and you know what we got to do is it's the same thing with with these other books with with our
[01:35:33] book and and I know you know we were kind of talking about this a little bit you know when you
[01:35:38] write a book you're confined in in some way to the structure of the book and to the length of the
[01:35:45] book and to the balance of the book and so you can't just drill down on some facet that might be
[01:35:54] it might not be totally pertinent to that particular way that it's laid out but what we're going
[01:36:00] to have to do is we're going to have to get next time you come on we got to do we got to do our
[01:36:06] own book we're going to do extreme ownership at least get it through a few chapters because
[01:36:12] because we we know the authors you know and we know that there's so much back behind those that
[01:36:17] it would be awesome to sit there and and kind of give a bunch of those you know a bunch of the
[01:36:22] backstory behind these things and and I think next time we got to we got to make that happen let's
[01:36:26] do it I like that idea there's there's so much there and it is even going back and review in the book
[01:36:32] you're thinking about these little things like oh we should have said that and obviously
[01:36:35] don't illustrate this you know the the point and we got to focus it but yeah there's a lot
[01:36:39] a lot behind that I mean I think about that blue on blues in area you know you know just an
[01:36:43] opening chapter you should have ownership and what that was about and all that went into that
[01:36:48] and yeah be great to talk about that and somebody do we'll have to get that next time now
[01:36:54] extreme ownership name of the book extreme ownership is also the name of something else that's about
[01:37:00] to happen may forth and fifth the master the extreme ownership master leadership conference I guess
[01:37:09] is that appropriate to call it a leadership conference I'm not sure I guess if you had to
[01:37:14] classify what it is then maybe we put in that category but to me the master stands by itself you know
[01:37:20] and I think the definitions that you know that we utilize a gathering together troops
[01:37:24] well take a careful war I guess that fits very probably so I I can't say I go into like big
[01:37:31] details about the master but I just I just mentioned it in case people are interested in getting
[01:37:39] better especially from a leadership perspective and really from a
[01:37:45] human potential you know getting to where you think you can get getting beyond where you can
[01:37:52] think you can get I don't talk too much about it so since you're here and you're sitting here
[01:37:58] what do you think what's what what did you what would like the highlights of the master because
[01:38:03] if we just did the first one last year in October 2017 I thought it was going to be cool 2016
[01:38:10] or sorry 2016 I what did I say 2017 oh yeah that hasn't happened yet I thought that the
[01:38:17] master would be cool you know what I mean I thought hey this is going to be cool like it's going to be cool we're
[01:38:21] going to you know meet a bunch of cool people and we're going to talk about all this cool stuff and
[01:38:25] and do our best to pass on information and give and receive information all that so I thought it was
[01:38:30] going to be cool but it was a lot better than cool it was it was it was it was it was it was it was
[01:38:34] freaking awesome and what were like some highlights for you when you think about it what are you
[01:38:40] excited about for New York what you know we talked to so many people all the time right and
[01:38:46] and awesome leaders you know from companies that we work with and different organizations out there
[01:38:51] and and it's just love love working these leaders love talking to them I think but the
[01:38:57] master was there was just something magical about that you know I remember we couldn't have even
[01:39:02] predicted that right I think I think you just came up with a new tag on come to the master it's magical
[01:39:07] you know come up with a new word I'm going to take some shit for that come to the we're going
[01:39:14] to call the magical monster maybe we need to cut that maybe cut so what was the reason what was magical
[01:39:22] about it look for me what was here's here's here's what coming off the stage we were talking
[01:39:30] about you know what are leaving people the idea of why you know they need to take advantage of
[01:39:35] every day the gift that's been given to them by those brave warriors that gave their lives so that
[01:39:42] they have the ability to pursue that you know and I remember coming on stage you gave you just came
[01:39:46] up gave me a big hug you're not a hugger I don't hug and I was actually not gonna take down
[01:39:53] it all I thought maybe something like that was coming I was getting ready I was getting ready to
[01:39:56] get ready to do it to sprawl but I remember just just that emotion of like this was an amazing event
[01:40:03] it was an amazing event I think what made it amazing was you know we were able to interact with so many
[01:40:10] people you know and so many people that were in the game and had the same goals the same
[01:40:18] drive exactly and from so many different walks of life you know we had some awesome we had some
[01:40:23] really high power you know senior executives from from some great companies to you know mid-level
[01:40:28] managers and front-line leaders that are just aspiring to take on greater ownership entrepreneurs you know
[01:40:34] the the military law enforcement firefighters paramedics I mean across the space some people that we
[01:40:42] couldn't even vision or imagine from you know from from volunteer you know nonprofit organizations
[01:40:47] and things like that and interacting with so many different people that are eager to learn to
[01:40:53] implement the the president was extremely ownership in their lives that was awesome for me and it
[01:40:58] was interesting to me some I hadn't even thought about is the fact that you know if we spent
[01:41:03] folks so many people had come up to me and said you know it was it was worth the price of
[01:41:06] admission alone just to meet other participants here and learn from them and learn from each other
[01:41:12] you know fellow troopers and it was it was just it was awesome to see that so for me you know all
[01:41:17] events we speak in events all the time and we we expect it great events and we work with great
[01:41:22] leaders but it it was the absolute best event of all time that I've ever been a part of best audience
[01:41:28] app you know and I'm so fired up to go back and it's gonna be it's gonna be that much better in
[01:41:33] New York right out it's gonna be there'll be a few the same folks that are gonna come in
[01:41:37] and attend that were there in San Diego and there'll be a whole new group of people you know who
[01:41:41] who couldn't come it it'll be even bigger and it's gonna be awesome one of the things that
[01:41:46] that was awesome for me and I know it was awesome for you too because we talked about it but
[01:41:49] the interaction that we had with everybody right and and I remember when we were kind of
[01:41:54] setting and planning the event that was one of the things where you know we were talking about this
[01:42:01] we had a hey we did this we could have this person we've that and finally out of this was like hey bro you
[01:42:06] know what we need to do we need to just be there no backstage no curtain nothing we need to meet
[01:42:14] and interact and answer questions and get in the game with everybody and that's exactly what we
[01:42:20] did like for instance you know there's there's we do a section we'd be up we'd be up talking
[01:42:25] for an hour answering questions for an hour and a half when we'd get done with that hour and a half
[01:42:30] we would just step forward to the stage and step down onto the floor and there'd be people
[01:42:36] lined up to say hey what about this hey you just said that and what do you think I should do here
[01:42:39] and it was like that for for two straight days and not just after the sessions but morning work
[01:42:44] gets right and we are our our zero four four four five club PT's that we're cranking out these awesome workouts and
[01:42:50] and we I mean all levels of athletes there's some really high in you know athletes or
[01:42:56] black credible and you know you did two players to to the you know just just some folks who've just
[01:43:01] started training or just started hitting the gym and encouraged to but podcast or whatnot
[01:43:05] and came out participating that and and walking you know jogging over to or walking back
[01:43:10] from those those workouts talking those leaders and people talking what would you do in this situation you
[01:43:15] know I remember having those conversations with people and you're helping them apply that stuff
[01:43:20] we've heard do social media so many of those people some of those specific conversations like
[01:43:24] I can't believe how good this word here's what's going on I'm not I'm not able to I just got a
[01:43:28] promotion you know based on this you know those kind of that kind of feedback we always talk about
[01:43:33] right there's only two measures that matter effective and ineffective and and how do you measure
[01:43:37] that it's whether the team is is accomplished in the mission you're effective you're not
[01:43:40] accomplished in mission that matter hard you work and you're not effective and for us that
[01:43:44] measure effectiveness is that people are actually going out and kicking ass in their world and
[01:43:49] they're getting promoted they're accomplished in their mission they're building a better team
[01:43:53] they're building better relationships with their boss you know with their peers with the sub
[01:43:57] contractor they work for with you know and they're they're being more engaged members of their
[01:44:03] community you know a better parent a better coach a better team member across all walks of life and
[01:44:08] I think that's really our measure effectiveness and it was it's just awesome to see so many folks
[01:44:15] doing extraordinary things that were part of the the the monster and so looking forward to that
[01:44:20] may 4th of 5th in New York it's going to be awesome and it's going to be exactly what you describe
[01:44:23] we're going to we're going to keep that no matter how long we do this or how big the
[01:44:28] monsters get I never want to never want it to be to lose that of of me and you stay engaged
[01:44:35] you know with participants not hide behind the curtain somewhere in the green room but be an
[01:44:40] out front talker people talking with leaders you know and help them apply the stuff to get
[01:44:45] better what they do this ain't the Wizard of Oz we ain't going to be hiding behind the curtain
[01:44:49] and you know and you talk about measures of success effective ineffective well for me like the
[01:44:59] biggest reward from doing the monster it's it's similar to what we do with our with our business
[01:45:05] of help and businesses and it's always great to get that feedback but to get a mass scale
[01:45:09] of you know 3 or 400 people and get that feedback about the promotions the advancements
[01:45:14] the goals achieve the fitness goals achieved the relationship goals to get that feedback has just been
[01:45:22] it's been awesome so like you said we look forward to seeing you there and you know
[01:45:27] actually speaking of the monster you're going to see life yeah you're going to see me of course
[01:45:34] you're going to see JP and Dave Dave Burke JP to now they're going to be there
[01:45:39] you're also going to see echo draws he's going to be there fully and kind of cruising to
[01:45:48] but he's going to be not fully cruising hard so you can get to meet most people want to meet
[01:45:55] echo the most he's like the base player in the band that like you know there's the lead guitarist
[01:46:02] and then there's the lead vocalist who's out front with the weird pants on but everyone looks
[01:46:08] at the basis in the back that's hammering down the tracks laying it down
[01:46:11] cruising echo draws cruising you're going to get to meet him so that was amazing me actually the
[01:46:17] number of people lined up to take pictures with you and talk to you I was getting jealous it was like
[01:46:24] that was awesome you finally they don't ask me like real questions though it's more like on a
[01:46:28] social level which I like that you want to keep it that way yeah easy questions if you got
[01:46:33] like a leadership question you go to life you can go to me if you want to do some socializing
[01:46:39] line get in that echo draws line go and shake his hand you want to get in that echo
[01:46:45] draws line one one thing about the buster in New Yorker particular is you know like anything in
[01:46:50] New York City get a limited space and we saw a lot of takes of that thing already if you want to be
[01:46:54] there for for it may force the fifth get your tickets now because I think we're going to sell this thing out
[01:46:59] and I think that's that's highly likely so it may those may not be there I would I would get those things
[01:47:05] purchased ASAP if you if you want to be a part of that yeah do it big part that I noticed from the last
[01:47:12] muster is the P you mentioned this before where people will come in they'll learn all this cool stuff and you know
[01:47:18] like minded people but they become like real good friends you know so like like that night when we had
[01:47:25] the the the the training that night you could tell I thought that all these guys came they all came together
[01:47:30] yeah not they didn't come together they just became friends and now they're cruising as friends now
[01:47:35] and there's people you know doing things now yeah we got podcasts you know
[01:47:41] now you know Brady and Simon also
[01:47:46] Debbie and Sonia and Sonia yeah they got a podcast going there's but there's someone else
[01:47:51] anyways so there's people that are that's the what Athena's podcast you got the trooper podcast
[01:47:58] trooper project you know modernism modern Athena's so there's things that are coming out those those
[01:48:04] are people that just met they weren't friends rolling into the buster they formed relationships
[01:48:09] and now they're out just crushing things yeah and that's how you know how like I mean
[01:48:13] Jiu-jitsu does this a lot where you come in and you're like you know by yourself and then after a while
[01:48:18] hey this guy likes Jiu-jitsu this guy likes Jiu-jitsu oh wait but wait hey you watched I don't know you know
[01:48:23] same the same show and slowly like how why you five oh slowly you start to gravitate towards
[01:48:31] these people but this in this kind of situation everyone's kind of like um like they're trying to
[01:48:36] get better you know better at this and it's so it's real similar to that life at life in general so
[01:48:42] it's almost like a double gravitation effect you know people like that's a scientific thing
[01:48:48] to buy the way so you know people don't know about the double gravitation effect
[01:48:53] with the buster double gravitation effect is in full effect across the board
[01:48:59] bro and it's funny because you see it you see like everyone's all talking you know like
[01:49:03] if I step back I see you and life talking you can kind of tell like all you guys if you know
[01:49:07] each other for a long time that's kind of what you see but then you realize oh they haven't
[01:49:11] known each other for a long time it's just pure double gravitation effect I think someone that
[01:49:16] cross over to is you know when you realize that you know a police officer who's sitting next to you
[01:49:21] has some of the same challenge that you have as a as a as a a small business you know entrepreneur
[01:49:26] who has the same problems as this guy who's CEO of a big company who has the same problems as
[01:49:31] this person who's in a startup so yeah who have by the way the same problems that late for
[01:49:36] night saw an experienced all in the battlefield yeah and their solution this is the thing
[01:49:43] those problems their solutions to them yeah they're out there this isn't this isn't magic
[01:49:49] as a matter of fact I know all of it well bust you down here but there ain't no magic there's
[01:49:54] knowledge speaking it's like you did to right do you know magic to do you sometimes I do say magic
[01:50:00] magic cool magical but you do say it's a superpower it's a superpower and speaking to you
[01:50:04] it's it we're gonna be trying some that's right that's right Friday even we're gonna be getting
[01:50:08] on so if you come to the monster I'm gonna go nogie for travel purposes is that cool yeah okay
[01:50:15] so we'll go plan the nogie situation plus echo like do you like nogie better it goes in phases
[01:50:22] so right now it's only only so you can wear your your your your tupper your tupper yes yes yes
[01:50:28] yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah sure so that
[01:50:35] is gonna happen echo like I said back to my point echo Charles will be there and come and see him
[01:50:44] and in the meantime echo if somebody does want to support this podcast can you let us know
[01:50:51] out and do it yeah man there's a few ways but I recommend supporting yourself we talked about being
[01:50:58] prepared right life weapon so good way to prepare is to train and with training comes help which
[01:51:05] is supplementation I was one of these guys who didn't wasn't into supplements ever like all that's
[01:51:12] like it's fake don't need it and really it's kind of true you kind of don't need it so I thought
[01:51:20] but if you get the right kind of something like okay so you you know we talk about krill oil okay
[01:51:25] supplements do matter something talk about some so you don't want to roll the other
[01:51:32] down when's last of my saw you a couple days ago I don't know yeah anyway I went in
[01:51:39] like training with Chris Rue's and he's he saw you guys rolling yes so I was there that day okay so
[01:51:43] we were so finished by the way yeah and he goes hard back belt goes hard yeah and I think I did
[01:51:48] around with him so fish yeah why do we call him so fish because he's hard to get a whole
[01:51:53] kind of fish covered in soap yeah hold on to him yeah he's like hard slick and wiry you know
[01:51:59] and greasy with a black belt and has that back yeah it's one thing to be like a you know
[01:52:05] in untrained soap fish which can be hard enough by the way anyway the point is I go with him I
[01:52:11] did three rounds with him you know and a few more rounds with other people and you know that feeling
[01:52:18] when you do a workout and you're like oh I feel like I feel like the workout's not done I don't
[01:52:22] feel like it's not like exhausted as I need to be after workout like this yeah so I kind of had
[01:52:29] that feeling or I'm like okay I need to do it like who can I go with like a hard you know I need to
[01:52:33] go like another round right and I remember that I took the shuntak yeah you kind of forget about
[01:52:38] because I took it I don't mean this in a bad way I don't yeah I don't mean this as a backhanded
[01:52:45] this can be bad comment sure but for everyone that doesn't quite know I don't normally see you
[01:52:55] as a guy that's going I need to get one more round yeah that's you right a lot of times you're like
[01:53:03] not actually good you know that one you're actually not right oh you know you're talking about the
[01:53:08] old me okay yeah the prezes this is pre-shromteck this is the style with that one you're talking
[01:53:13] about pre-shromteck pre-metcon well yeah we get you in shunt yeah yeah so no that's not me you know
[01:53:20] I like you know that that is to your full credit you know you are different now not just because
[01:53:27] of your skill level in GD2 but also because of your your metcon your endurance and all that you've
[01:53:33] definitely you you used to be done oh yeah so and I and I talk about this for the where that's a
[01:53:40] good point though because one kind of plays off the other especially if you don't like being tired so
[01:53:47] if you get tired early you're like you're gonna do less and you're gonna try less things you're
[01:53:52] gonna you know because you're kind of fighting that fight as well you know so when that tiredness
[01:53:57] goes away and you know how to deal with being tired you're like okay now I'm kind of free to
[01:54:03] try this if it fails I can try it again I can not you know if you're if you're not in good shape
[01:54:07] or if you if you buckle to being tired it's like you only have a few bullets in the clip and once you're
[01:54:12] done you're kind of like oh my guns were worthless now you know the gun looks good from lifting weights
[01:54:18] and you know all this stuff but it's done after a few bullets but you load up the bullets
[01:54:24] endless bullets right you can go shoot targets here to anyway well it is I will get since I gave you a
[01:54:31] a negative on the old you I'll say the new you got some you got some good you got that you
[01:54:38] did too yeah which is way better than it used to be yeah even even the old echo Charles though
[01:54:42] when we were rolling back in the day with a cutter our mutual friend cake nuts and I he he your
[01:54:49] eyes you're always he'd go another round particularly for us it was when he is our skill level was far below
[01:54:54] his oh he likes his way you should let's do another round with me smashing you and keep in mind
[01:55:00] in my defense this is jockel's evaluation when he's like you're done well yeah when you're rolling
[01:55:05] with jockel you're kind of done you know but it's not like I was just this sack of potatoes those
[01:55:11] just don't it was like roll with the white belts you have a full of rounds that's what I'm here
[01:55:16] here from may have the standard that comes out of jockel is very high you say no I'm not
[01:55:22] you're statement of the year not that he's wrong not that he's wrong listen I'm and he's
[01:55:27] just full of compliments on the time yeah yeah Dave did that thing you did as I was like hey
[01:55:31] did I say something like this you know I think it was like something positive about life
[01:55:35] and he's like yeah you did say that and I remember it because it's like the one of the four
[01:55:39] compliments you give me in the last 12 years oh that's cool don't happen often got a note of
[01:55:45] I know the one they don't but that is true and it does help and not in just that way though not in
[01:55:50] just the way like oh I can I mean better shaping that's good that's true but you just you can
[01:55:56] do jiu jitsu no without that added enemy in there so you're like free to do more jiu jitsu
[01:56:01] so to sum up the last 12 minutes of conversation what you're saying is on a dot com slash
[01:56:09] choco yeah you know I got into the story it was a good one my opinion yeah no that day that's how
[01:56:17] I felt I felt like my work I was actually I was actually I was actually thinking the same thing
[01:56:22] because the other thing about Chris so fish is he moves a lot is a mover and when you move
[01:56:30] even if the guy's lighter than you you have to move with them or you're gonna get you're gonna
[01:56:34] get caught and so you had to move you couldn't stop moving and he's gonna move all the time on you
[01:56:38] and that's why I was really impressed with the fact that I've trained you so well
[01:56:46] how's it best without you kept bringing you know kept and you want to do another round I could
[01:56:51] see it so good on good on true tech and I did take and that con the thing is you forget you
[01:56:57] did you just fish could I took it like like an hour before even well I guess it was about an hour
[01:57:04] before it actually was rolling but it was like maybe half hour for a left I don't kind of forgot
[01:57:09] I'll tell you in this whole idea of shrimp tech and what's the other one performance
[01:57:13] total strength the coke or something or it's like a strawberry banana yeah so if that's
[01:57:20] considered cheating then I've been cheating a lot lately because it's a lot of times I've already
[01:57:26] worked out in the day I've been up all day I went sir I did a bunch of stuff so it's not like I'm
[01:57:31] rolling in to the gym or to train the jiu-jitsu being off fresh I haven't been getting a massage
[01:57:37] all day no I'm not actually grinding it out all day and so sometimes I need to get on so
[01:57:42] that yeah and so this is really why I say it's cheating because I'm always saying it while I'm
[01:57:49] looking at you and it's cheating if it's like me against you who's you know who's the
[01:57:53] better warrior kind of thing and so all but you're on shrimp tech okay okay so you have a little
[01:57:59] help then so you know but no if you're training and you want to learn jiu-jitsu or you want to
[01:58:05] push performance so you because that's how you get gains you recover from exercise and you want to
[01:58:10] push exercise and you want to in jiu-jitsu situation where you want to train be able to train longer
[01:58:16] without you know the burden of this fatigue where you might have to quit at a certain time or whatever
[01:58:20] don't have to quit not well you know what I mean you don't have to quit it is helpful this
[01:58:26] shroom tech it's a somewhere when you get rabdo and you start pissing on it no right
[01:58:32] yeah you probably time it sure you gotta stop it take some recovery yeah all right this is my non-verbal
[01:58:37] signal for let's move to the next item when I do this yeah no but there's still a lot to be said though
[01:58:42] that's the thing see and I think that's really the value of this whole thing is that this needs to be
[01:58:47] talked about if I knew this like back in the you were talking about that echo that you were talking
[01:58:56] about if I knew this kind of stuff echo one point oh yeah I would I would have spent very
[01:59:00] little time at that point oh you all that against me because I could have told you about this
[01:59:03] stuff earlier now I don't man you know that's life maybe I was afraid to
[01:59:09] anyway no I wasn't it late I don't know if you're on the shroom tech or whatever
[01:59:14] crude oil that's a big one I haven't tried shroom tech but I just got a new order of acrylic
[01:59:18] oil and actually from on it so you just pull that I got I got some strong bone as well yeah strong
[01:59:23] one that's good yeah those are good because they keep you in like you can yeah I do like super
[01:59:28] deep squats and I had knee surgery full on ACL like all this stuff deep squats all the way no problem
[01:59:34] no factor acrylic oil just boom taking it through nonetheless if you guys like these types of supplements
[01:59:41] go to onit.com slash jocco if you want 10% off you add a slash jocco boom get yourself keep yourself
[01:59:49] in the game also good way to support Amazon if you shop Amazon click through our website
[01:59:55] joccopodcast.com this little Amazon banner there on the site it's actually in the menu too
[02:00:00] now you just you know on the top navigation menu is what you call it click on there before you
[02:00:06] do your shopping whatever you're buying whether it be these these books or whatever you know
[02:00:11] do you like that you can support small teeny tiny action great support but
[02:00:18] now the way of course is to subscribe if you're on iTunes or any of these other podcasting
[02:00:23] platforms whatever they may be stitch or google play all these ones there's other ones too
[02:00:29] but i'm just saying subscribe that's the point you know even though you probably have already so
[02:00:36] also youtube videos more videos i think we're gonna release one tomorrow
[02:00:42] oh cool one little fun one by tomorrow you mean tomorrow from today yeah so it already
[02:00:49] okay so there's gonna be a new one now maybe i might not don't unpredictable you know we call
[02:00:54] that variable reward system that i'm delivering anyway um youtube channel we have some videos on
[02:01:00] there uh if you like the video version of podcast or you like these other like chunks of lessons or
[02:01:07] whatever the jocco talks about subscribe you'll get a little notification when they come up
[02:01:12] when i upload them if you want it if you want yeah of course because i'm double don't
[02:01:16] like to get notified yeah i like to get notified because sometimes such a long period of time comes
[02:01:24] between when a video comes out from you yeah i was like that before i know man that was
[02:01:28] those are hard times you know it's not like that anymore there's no way i could ever possibly
[02:01:33] know unless i got that notification says jocco podcast is just uploaded a video and i rejoiced
[02:01:38] yeah you kind of forget about it really then i rejoiced situation but yeah and i had to turn off
[02:01:43] the notifications for that one because it'll go off right when i finish uploading so i already
[02:01:48] know when they're uploaded same same i do see what you're saying sensitive you know i sense cool
[02:01:55] um the not the last way but another way is um if you were t-shirts and you want to represent
[02:02:01] who doesn't wear t-shirts not me i wear t that's it that's my whole uniform t-shirt boom
[02:02:08] um but yeah if you like t-shirts you want to represent in this way boom jocco podcast shirts
[02:02:14] multiple types of shirts uh rush guards as well for the no-gay situation jiu jitsu or
[02:02:21] like anything where you need range of motion like running cycling crossfit all this stuff anyway they're good
[02:02:27] may or may not give you 19% improvement in all performance
[02:02:30] why are you saying may not i think that's like um the scientifically literate way to put it
[02:02:39] nobody there's it's it's actually will because there's no one that said hey i didn't get the
[02:02:43] 19% out of this gig yeah i think it yeah actually yeah you're right there you go boy it's
[02:02:48] yeah it's at 18.7% yeah you know you get one of these slackers that maybe you know
[02:02:54] if you have the rush guard you're probably not a slacker so i guess that's invalid as well
[02:02:57] um but yeah anyway jocco store dot com that's that's where you can get all the you know rush guards
[02:03:03] and cool shirts i think they're cool you made uh we went through great lengths to get the good shirts
[02:03:10] good quality one guy emailed me actually not one guy just i got another recent email said it's
[02:03:17] my favorite shirt to wear because of how it fits and it because it's good you know it's not like
[02:03:22] a giveaway freesture you get you know when you go to the stocker game and wherever you go you know
[02:03:28] you know you're cool check them out if you like them support that way get one and represent
[02:03:32] and psychological warfare okay so i'm going to go into psychological warfare if you don't know
[02:03:36] psychological warfare if you're at a moment of weakness and your diet work out uh waking up in the
[02:03:41] morning he need a little boost little like someone there to sort of gently spot you help you through
[02:03:46] these moments of weakness you go on iTunes maybe Amazon music wherever you can buy MP3's
[02:03:55] get psychological warfare jocco will link a little tracks you can listen you can put it as your alarm
[02:04:01] if you want or just listen to the whatever track you need and he'll get you through it i'm telling
[02:04:05] you here's the thing so yes and day before yesterday i was about to work out felt like working
[02:04:12] you know rested boom you know took my pre workout stuff ready i was like oh listen the
[02:04:19] psychological warfare at my moment of strength has this ever been tried before i don't know that's
[02:04:24] the thing that's what i was thinking at the time bro it's kind of like abuse you know how like
[02:04:30] you know how like your drink coffee or something like fucking kind of tired i'm going to drink some coffee
[02:04:34] and when you're not tired you drink it's like whaah i'm buzzing off the end you have that good feeling
[02:04:38] now you're like double coffee to up ready to get after it that's how you feel it's like i'm
[02:04:44] abusing the psychological warfare only for moments of weakness for moments of triumph is what it is
[02:04:50] that's it not even so even if you're feeling weak and you want to move to triumph that's what it is
[02:04:55] it's what how is the workout is the question workout was dope of course it was dope check me out bro
[02:05:00] pump still on anyway good um you know while you're clicking through amazon by the way you can get
[02:05:12] on amazon dot com you can get jockel white t now there's other reports have come in
[02:05:17] and this report well i found interesting because this is a side effect apparently of the t
[02:05:21] of the t and that is and this could be a positive side effect or could be a negative side effect
[02:05:26] depending on who you are but one guy reported that he drank some tea at night and he had one
[02:05:31] point five inches of beard growth overnight so if you want that it could be positive could be negative
[02:05:39] and also we had a police officer out there and and again this is just i'm just given some new
[02:05:45] some new testament testimonies that have come in this one um one police officer he's shooting
[02:05:53] the l president a drill which is a drill where you have two targets and you should two rounds
[02:05:57] in each target and you do reloaded and his time has decreased which is an improvement right so he's
[02:06:03] not be able to do this faster 31% which i think is really good especially numbers yeah
[02:06:09] this is a critical situation right you got two bad guys and then you got to do reload you might
[02:06:14] want to have some jockel white t that's almost double the 19% yeah it's good yeah and and a thing
[02:06:20] is that i want to make sure everybody understands is that this isn't like conjecture in some
[02:06:26] pseudo science that i'm talking about here this is 147% factual so everyone should know that so
[02:06:34] order the t the jockel white t also you can order a new book which is called way of the warrior
[02:06:42] kid and i got asked why wrote this the other day and one of the things that propelled me to write this
[02:06:50] book was i was looking for a book when my son was a little younger how's looking for a book for a
[02:06:55] boy to read it's good a book and so you know i wanted him to read kind of a book right kind of a
[02:07:02] book about getting after it right so i went out and i looked through a couple books and i finally found
[02:07:07] this pirate book and i got a cool pirate book i didn't pay too much attention i didn't like look
[02:07:10] through it because it's a pirate book right pirate are swords and ships taking over right good storming
[02:07:20] vessels i can see so i go into the book i break bring it home to my son we start reading the book
[02:07:28] and um they were weak and so now i'm like trying to get my son you know
[02:07:33] pardon up and in the game and he's reading about weak pirates they weren't they didn't even attack anybody right
[02:07:40] so i realize that there's a death of books for children not just boys but boys and girls
[02:07:48] that will show someone how to get after that a young age right which you can start getting after
[02:07:53] it at birth by the way there's no reason to wait there's no legal minimum age of to be 18
[02:07:58] okay i see your kid get after it lessons you get after i be card no you can start getting
[02:08:02] at after at birth so that's one of the reasons that i wrote a book about a kid who's
[02:08:11] not gonna be a pansy and not gonna be wimpy he actually is in the beginning he's feeling pretty
[02:08:17] weak you know how many polyps you can do so many zero polyps it's not good you know you know
[02:08:24] he's you know you know well he knows his time stables how well he doesn't know him but no it's time stables that's
[02:08:33] weak i guess what can he swim no cancel him and last thing is he getting picked on yeah can he
[02:08:41] williamson can he williamson the bully he's all up on him pushing him around he can't stand up
[02:08:47] to him doesn't know what to do so is that a good way to go through life i don't know you tell me
[02:08:52] zero polyps do you want to be able to do zero polyps echo lathe no not good get be able to do some
[02:08:57] polyps yeah so that's why wrote the book so that the kid out there they can't do any polyps
[02:09:05] maybe he's getting picked on maybe maybe he can't swim but maybe there's some other thing in his
[02:09:09] life that he we all got issues you know we all got some we got overcome we all got feared overcome
[02:09:14] guess what we talk about fear in the book because everyone lathe was talking about today we all
[02:09:18] get afraid how you can overcome that well luckily for mark in the book his uncle Jake shows up
[02:09:24] uncle Jake was in the sealed teams he's got some lessons to teach to young mark and that's what he does
[02:09:30] so you can preorder it right now way the warrior kid and you know what we got to make some
[02:09:36] t-shirts on that one yeah kids t-shirts yeah the few parts that you did tell me it's even you
[02:09:44] explain you like that's a good little explanation of it it's good but the little parts that you
[02:09:50] were telling me were were kind of impressive like there is that's kind of advanced for a kids book
[02:09:56] even you know in a good way meaning like it's not you know there's certain obvious things that
[02:10:00] you you know you're gonna find any kids book right even with stories like this it's like okay
[02:10:05] I know the narrative I get it we had it has to be that way to you know to teach the lesson effective all
[02:10:09] this stuff but the little hints of complexity they're impressive I gotta say the other thing that
[02:10:17] is even when I read right now just finished finalists edits and you're like there's so much in there
[02:10:25] that's actually from the podcast but it's for a kid it's put in a kid's language
[02:10:30] yeah uncle Jake's breaking it down real simple so that's why that's why I don't care who you are
[02:10:35] you want to broken down that's a law combat in the book extreme ownership written by
[02:10:40] late babbit myself gotta keep things simple so it's in a simple way so that's where the
[02:10:45] warrior kid and also by the way just released another book it's called this puny
[02:10:52] cool freedom field manual and this is the this is the ebook that I talked about here in a long
[02:10:59] time ago I'm gonna write an ebook right well it turned into a real book and it's broken
[02:11:05] into two parts one part is called thoughts the other part is called actions these are actually my
[02:11:13] thoughts and my actions so what are thoughts well what I think about what's going on what I think
[02:11:19] about when you run up against weakness what do you think those are the thoughts and then actions
[02:11:23] is okay how do you act which means workouts are in there which means talks about martial arts
[02:11:29] talks about what I eat how I sleep and that kind of stuff so preorder it check it out
[02:11:40] and it will help them logistically when the book comes out because see the publishers
[02:11:49] they don't understand what we're doing here they don't know what we're doing here they don't know
[02:11:54] and when I'm talking about we I'm not talking about you I'm not talking about we I'm talking about
[02:11:58] we yeah yeah they understand what we're doing here they understand that there's troopers that
[02:12:03] want to get after it so and they don't understand that they're like okay well you know I guess
[02:12:09] we'll print I guess we'll print 400 copies of that so not way you know again it's time someone can
[02:12:14] buy it but they don't know for me let's good they don't know what they're talking about so
[02:12:19] preorder so they understand what we are doing here maybe we'll get some of them in the game actually
[02:12:26] okay so that's that and you know speaking of books
[02:12:33] life I was talking about a little book called extreme ownership what are you hearing from the
[02:12:38] field on extreme ownership right now the book that we wrote I'm I'm here a lot from the field
[02:12:45] on extreme ownership I mean what's what's awesome to me about extreme ownership is just
[02:12:49] continues the resonate with people you know and even you know we're over a year and a half out of
[02:12:54] publication now and that this thing continues to be in the top 150 or 200 on Amazon and so much
[02:13:03] of that as a word of mouth driven you know that people are buying that for their team you know
[02:13:06] and holding well we're waiting a bit we'll did help with that big ad that we put in the New York
[02:13:11] Times did that help sell it oh wait no we didn't do that oh maybe it's the TV spots that we
[02:13:16] don't know we didn't do that either so word of mouth it is exactly and not you know for that
[02:13:22] that's the real testament I think for you know for me that we wrote a book that's resin
[02:13:27] with leaders that's helping them get better to lead better teams for people to to be better
[02:13:32] teammates and employ these concepts in extreme ownership you know when we see them you know
[02:13:36] the the fire service training that's going on you know and face firefighters are using that
[02:13:42] as they're they're training man in a conduct in these these training or we see police police
[02:13:46] units doing it we see businesses you know and some of them bring us in and have training
[02:13:51] some of them they're holding their own training they're buying that book and they're they're
[02:13:54] learning out of it I was working with the business just just just a couple weeks back where they
[02:13:59] you know each each group in this leadership team was assigned to study a chapter and talk about
[02:14:05] how what did that chapter apply to them and they're they're they're learning out of that and it's
[02:14:09] inspiring to see that stuff because not only is it is it you know does it say hey we wrote a book
[02:14:13] that's having some impact but when you see the things that they're doing when they're implementing
[02:14:17] extreme ownership when they're using cover move and they're not focused on themselves but about
[02:14:21] the mission and work together as a team and and using decentralized community you know it's playing
[02:14:25] the why to their teams and and the results are amazing you know see that happen and and that's really
[02:14:32] you know that's really what it's all about for us I think is seeing that kind of impact so
[02:14:37] it's been awesome to see that and looking forward for that to continue to grow and expand
[02:14:44] it's reach across the globe you know we we talk about in the book we talk about work on
[02:14:48] the Iraqi soldiers and one of the hardest things obviously even if you took a great soldier
[02:14:54] but they don't speak the language you speak any of a language barrier that's a real problem so
[02:14:58] a lot of times in these teams what the book gives them what the extreme ownership gives them it
[02:15:02] gives them a a language common language to talk about the issues the leadership problems that they're
[02:15:08] having they can identify because how can you fight an enemy that you can identify so if you know
[02:15:13] if you don't know that hey our decentralized command is weak and if you don't know what that is and
[02:15:18] you can identify how can you fix it if you got a cover move to solve problems and work together
[02:15:23] but you don't know what that looks like or you don't even know what to call it how are you going to
[02:15:27] get it solved so that's one of the things that I notice when we show up at a company that already is
[02:15:34] using it and have read it they're immediately saying you know hey this is the this situation
[02:15:39] we got we got these divisions over here in this division over here and we're not covering moving for
[02:15:42] each other we we got to identify and you go okay so they've already got a grip on it when people
[02:15:46] that we go and talk to they they haven't read the book yet they can't even really identify what's wrong
[02:15:52] they just don't see it they don't have the the ability it's like not having night vision they just
[02:15:57] they just don't see it so the book when you get that book out there everyone on your team
[02:16:01] and all of a sudden they all have that common language they all can identify targets they know
[02:16:06] what the bad guys look like and they know how to fix it and that's that's what I notice that's
[02:16:11] awesome about when we work with these companies and they're in the game big time and then the
[02:16:17] the master may force in fifth New York City go to extreme ownership dot com sign up now like I said
[02:16:23] before I think this thing is probably gonna sell out so if you want tickets if you want to be there
[02:16:27] if you want to be a part of this bad ass event that we just we were talking about just this amazing
[02:16:33] group of people of us leaders and aspiring leaders to get in the game sign up now extreme ownership
[02:16:39] dot com I will not get you doing a speech for the record just so you know everyone echo doesn't
[02:16:46] think he's gonna give a speech we think he probably should how about a side speech no speech
[02:16:53] we're doing all the time yeah echo echo is echo is a very laid back you know the the good
[02:16:59] island that when we put him up on stage for the master he was not happy about that no
[02:17:04] that was just to say thanks yeah you and in your shell not man I got it you're welcome hey
[02:17:11] you know on with the shell so you know we you gotta we talk about you gotta focus on your weaknesses
[02:17:16] right so that I think you need to present at least for a couple hours on the stage so I got to talk
[02:17:21] about those ones because it just happened again so the echo's got this thing where he goes into
[02:17:25] this alternate voice at the end of some sentences and I noticed in one of the last podcast that
[02:17:30] I actually started doing it too so I'm gonna spend saying hey jockel what have you gotten from echo
[02:17:35] well I think the one thing that I could say I definitely got from echo is doing this thing right here
[02:17:40] because that's what he just did it he just did it so pay attention to that I don't know what
[02:17:44] and you know what I call that I'm gonna call that the echo voice escalation yeah so you just
[02:17:50] talking normal and then all of a sudden you go into that echo voice escalation so that you got
[02:17:54] your own thing now it's effective see there you do that that one that one a before the master
[02:18:02] until the master if you want to give us feedbacks or comments or whatever do you want to
[02:18:08] continue this conversation you you can actually find us not hard to find find us on the interwebs
[02:18:17] Twitter Instagrammy and of course of course you want to find us on that page pocket ball
[02:18:28] we gonna be there that one. Lafe is at Lafe Babin echo is at echo Charles and I am
[02:18:37] at jockel will like echo do you have anything else to add right now oh man oh yeah actually I do
[02:18:46] and I heard you mentioned this before where you talking about in Ramadi where you know the sun
[02:18:52] comes up and you say you hear the call to prayer I know what that is but what what is that sound like
[02:18:58] what is the call to prayer you know what is it a person like on a it is a person it's a person
[02:19:04] around loudspeaker right so each mosque has a minirat which is a tower and they generally have a loudspeaker
[02:19:11] and so you've got I forget what you the title is and the Islamic world there's a specific
[02:19:18] title for the prayer call or that's gonna get up and sing this prayer but yeah you just hear
[02:19:24] these speakers going off all over the city it's like a chant yeah they sing you know they sing
[02:19:30] that's a song so it's so many that you know when you hear that you know like the so they'll be
[02:19:35] one early in the morning so like before the sun comes up and we had to be in place you know you're
[02:19:39] going you're going in emitator you had to be in the building locked down ready to go because as soon
[02:19:44] as the call to prayer goes down you know that the city's gonna start awakening you know we're
[02:19:48] gonna start you know coming out of their houses and cars start n up and people moving around and
[02:19:53] and the sun's gonna come up you know pretty soon and so yeah there's there's there's five of
[02:19:57] those throughout the day and you know that would be the you give that that morning call the prayer
[02:20:03] was like we're gonna get some you're gonna get the enemy the enemy in Ramadi for the most part
[02:20:08] didn't operate at nighttime because we had all the advantages of night vision everything
[02:20:12] else so they operated during the day so the indicator that the day was starting is the first
[02:20:17] morning call the prayer and when you hear it you know man that's so crazy how it's like it's like
[02:20:22] this official beginning of the day you know a call that's like the official commencement of the day
[02:20:30] in that crazy I guess you think it's crazy I mean we have that individually you know your alarm clock
[02:20:34] or your whatever but like for everybody yeah that's what that's one of the things that makes it so
[02:20:42] so crazy is that it is the whole city every day you know because like one actually this was
[02:20:48] one a at one point they said hey you weren't allowed then the way they say we weren't allowed to go within a block of
[02:20:52] of a mosque or something like that and there's so many mosques in Ramadi we just showed them
[02:20:57] my map and we're like okay so you don't want us to do anything because if we can't go within two
[02:21:01] blocks of a mosque or whatever the rule that they try to throw at us you know said so you don't want
[02:21:05] us to do anything else on this deployment because here's a mosque here's a mosque here's a mosque
[02:21:10] here's a mosque and by the way Intel says this mosque is okay local mosque Intel says this one's bad
[02:21:15] this one's bad this one's good so we had you know different different you know because just because
[02:21:21] someone's the mosque some of the some of the neighbors are saying oh great it's called a pair
[02:21:25] we're ready start a beautiful day just some of the people but the smaller group of people was saying
[02:21:30] oh here's the called a prayer let's go and attack Americans and in torture the local populace so
[02:21:35] and unfortunately because the mosque were protected and we had to get massive approvals all the way up
[02:21:40] to like the highest levels to be able to enter the mosque the the bad guys knew that and they'd use
[02:21:45] those mosques to to stage attacks out of you know and they they stock power weapons and ammunition
[02:21:51] and and that stuff there so the bad guys figured out it was it was not good crazy the little detail
[02:21:59] so you know I mean that I mean I always hear from like you guys just a little detail stuff that you
[02:22:03] don't necessarily think about the gun fights and all this stuff but just those little details
[02:22:10] kind of makes it real man it's crazy any other questions echo trolls or comments no sorry
[02:22:20] very good to see life again that's it good late for got anything else brother yeah just
[02:22:27] great to be back on here with you guys again you know it's awesome thinking back to the you know podcast
[02:22:32] 11 you know I was the first guest and just getting this thing up and running you know and and to
[02:22:38] see the reach that it's that it's had you know as as the expansion and you know and where we're
[02:22:44] sitting today you know versus where it was then you know third time I'm back on it's pretty
[02:22:48] pretty awesome pretty awesome see that and I've so many people I've been sitting in
[02:22:52] jujitsu classes before someone here's me talk and like are you really bad exactly I guess
[02:22:58] it's the the last me voice is it is given me a way but they're like I started trained
[02:23:03] jujitsu because the jaccopacass and I've had that happen multiple times you know whether in
[02:23:08] jujitsu class or meeting someone you know randomly in an airport or those kind of things and
[02:23:13] but just awesome it's awesome to see true persol over the world you know all over the
[02:23:18] place get after it you know through and loyal listeners jaccopacass and passing it on to others
[02:23:25] I echo asked me that because we we get a lot of people that on social media they say hey
[02:23:30] I just enlisted in the army I just listened to Marine Corps I've gone OCS a lot of people you know thanks for
[02:23:35] you know pushing me that way or whatever and echo says you know like hey do you think how many people do you think
[02:23:42] of actually joined the military because of the podcast and I said you know I don't know what that number
[02:23:48] looks like but there's the amount of people that have started jujitsu because the podcast is a big number
[02:23:56] it's a big number which is awesome because obviously you know jujitsu is really good for me. I think the
[02:24:00] number of people joined the military is probably substantial as well in fact I was just talking to a
[02:24:03] young lady last night at the event we were speaking at who came up to me and said hey I'm thinking
[02:24:08] about joining the Navy and you know I said she just started listening to the jaccopacass I think
[02:24:12] those are very much related I told her to go buy a copy of the stream ownership and you know to
[02:24:18] learn from that and take ownership everything in the world she's gonna do well so she was she was an EMT
[02:24:23] and yeah one area a Navy corpsman so I think so many people from all walks of life
[02:24:29] influenced for good by the jaccopacass. It's definitely definitely definitely awesome for us to be
[02:24:37] a part of it and get all that feedback all the time and of course there's no coincidence in the
[02:24:41] fact that you were the first guest on here obviously I just did an echo escalation that was that was
[02:24:48] good. I could you have an influence in the world. I mean finally I hope there's not someone out there
[02:24:55] that doesn't like it and blames you and then goes on a crazy like stalker mission to eliminate
[02:25:01] you from the world. Yeah okay lucky is pretty good at jajitsu I think you take care of yourself and
[02:25:06] he's got a lot of knives and hatchets so nice nice any other closers yeah you know I was just thinking
[02:25:12] we were in that conversation yesterday you know and as a dad of young kids you know I've got
[02:25:19] I've got a toddler and a baby and you know I know echo you got so you got young kids as well
[02:25:26] and you know just thinking about it can be all you parents out there you know I'm talking about right
[02:25:32] it can be exhausting you know we go through a time it's winter time you got kids you've got
[02:25:36] colds and they're sick and they're waking up multiple times the night cutting into my my 445 club workouts
[02:25:42] you know and it's it's easy to like it's easy you know when my my little baby girl crawls around
[02:25:48] the floor she just tries to eat everything you know picks up the choking hazards and and
[02:25:55] shoves them around like you gotta keep an eye on the concoxity you know and my son is just a wild man
[02:26:00] he's just he'll he'll just know fear of anything he's just I'm learning that he's just like me
[02:26:05] and I realize what my parents actually put up with but he takes off running for the most dangerous
[02:26:09] thing within a mile radius and and he just like without looking back and without heating any
[02:26:16] warning or command to stop for me whatsoever so so it's it is full time and I'm in the game all
[02:26:22] the time and it can be exhausting you know it can be it's something that you can think oh man
[02:26:27] I just can't wait till they get a little bit older and I don't have to you know I can tell
[02:26:30] on the stop or he knows not to run in the street or my daughter's not choking on something she
[02:26:35] you know and and and the reality is you know just being out of a jocco and seeing his kids you know
[02:26:41] and you're all the starters by the graduate now from from high school which is amazing to me
[02:26:46] because when I left you know San Diego here you're you're you're kids they were kids they were
[02:26:52] little you know and watch them grow up and the teenagers now and you know when we first met we
[02:26:56] started working at the testing and they were really little you know you're young as I'm even
[02:27:01] born and you're still in was just a I mean just a baby a two or three year old yeah and and so
[02:27:08] I just I realize it doesn't seem like I left the Navy that long ago you know it's it'll be six
[02:27:13] years of summer and I realize that time has flown by like that it is just going by like that and
[02:27:20] and so seeing that you know and seeing your kids now I I got to take a step back the detachment
[02:27:25] that we always talk about right to be able to see with a bigger perspective and to think
[02:27:30] these moments right they they're awesome and I got to relish every
[02:27:36] nanosecond of them because my kids are going to grow up and they're going to be teenagers and
[02:27:41] they're going to graduate my school and they're going to go off and I got to rest you know for me
[02:27:44] and my wife we got to cherish those moments and people tell you that you know but you still don't
[02:27:50] even like embrace you know you still like oh if I can just get to this level
[02:27:54] you're worried about the diaper the dirty diaper and the apple sauce or exactly you know and
[02:28:01] or you know my kid just went through my drawer and through everything out and I get to clean that up
[02:28:06] and we're trying to get out the door so I think for me it's a great recognition of like
[02:28:10] that those moments are fleeting and they're precious and you got to enjoy every second of that so
[02:28:16] for you parents out there listen to this if you're in that boat with me detach take a step back think
[02:28:22] about how wonderful those moments are and just just relish it relish every moment and
[02:28:31] don't let yourself get flustered don't let yourself get overwhelmed if your kids get
[02:28:37] up a fourth hour anymore and maybe it's time to back it up to a zero three hundred but
[02:28:43] embrace every every second of that as a parent and cherish those moments because those are
[02:28:48] the most important things about Brad all give you a small tip that helped me with that you know
[02:28:54] when like certain things get overwhelming you try to do this and they're crying and then the
[02:28:58] other ones doing something and you're like you kind of want to yell at them be like hey I need a
[02:29:02] minute or something but they're like kids are like a minute what does that even mean kind of thing
[02:29:07] they don't know so the tip there is anytime you feel it bubbling up like you're getting frustrated
[02:29:12] understand that you're at that moment making it about yourself and it's not about yourself you
[02:29:18] know it's about whether you can look at it I'm gonna make it about the mission or I'm gonna make
[02:29:22] it about these kids make it about something other than yourself and you won't be frustrated anymore
[02:29:28] telling you anytime in time you're like oh I've been up all night this baby has been crying
[02:29:33] away you're just making it about yourself right now oh you oh you you poor parent you know meanwhile
[02:29:39] everyone you know many parents have been through the exact same thing you're making it about yourself right
[02:29:43] now you're feeling sorry whatever you know just don't make it about yourself and know that that's what
[02:29:47] you're doing if you feel that and then it's all that's exactly right check the ego yeah essentially
[02:29:53] yeah it's about the mission yeah exactly it's not about you right no that's a good one yeah that's
[02:29:58] great great advice life and uh yeah so haven't seen my kids grow up and seem about to leave the
[02:30:03] nest as they say yeah embrace that whole time and thanks obviously for coming on again
[02:30:11] I'm sure this won't be the last time and we'll we'll do it again and everyone else out there that's
[02:30:18] listening thank you all especially especially the military personnel across the globe right now
[02:30:27] by the way they're not getting to enjoy those moments with their family they're out there in
[02:30:32] harm's way standing the watch for us so thank you to all of you to the police and law enforcement
[02:30:44] stay proactive and aggressive in your fight against crime and stay safe out in the streets
[02:30:52] and thank you all for keeping our streets safe in the firefighters and the EMTs and again
[02:30:58] who we call and we thank only when we need you thanks for being there waiting to help us when we
[02:31:10] need it and to the rest of you out there doing what you're doing as you go out there and do it
[02:31:22] don't do it easy don't take it easy and if someone says to you take it easy
[02:31:35] tell them no tell them you aren't gonna take it easy tell them you're gonna go hard as hard as you can
[02:31:43] tell them you're gonna push and grind and fight and work as hard as you can until you have nothing left
[02:31:55] and then turn around and walk away from that person and go do just that and do it hard
[02:32:03] and so until next time this is life and echo and jockel out