[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, he had been, uh, been in the Navy for many, many years, probably a little over 20 years. And he was in charge of the, of the mess area. And then he had, he had been transferred from there to New Guinea just before we landed. That's how he survived.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was doing that, and he saw that, and he, the reaction from him was really something. It was really something. When he saw that picture, he says, yeaah. Yeaah, that was done a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm going to return the first time, I'm going to return the first time in, in 82 and, uh, I stayed with, with, uh, uh, missionaries there for a couple, for three or four days or more and then during that time, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, they had a, we had a, we sat down and I was, I spoke and asked them to sing. And they just loved to sing, you know. And then it's not, not you gotta sing the Marine Hymn. So, and then, so then, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, no, these words, and I went through the words to a certain extent, and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well that, that was so interesting that to hear they sang that song that was a love song, like same as I read him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh then, after that, I invited him over to the other church that they'd spread off from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And these kids, they all clapped in the American flag and they were real quiet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here the, here the, uh, the archaeologist was brushing off the bones, and on this one person,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can look at the faces of all these that were killed. And this art has one, uh, photograph.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When it came to, uh, making a proposal to enable us to oppress, it had to go through their, uh, through their, uh, border review scene. And, and then after that, no, it had to go through, it had to go through your, uh, what's the word for it, uh, somebody has the same,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Same mountain as you do, I forget what it was. Anyway, this, Joseph Alexander was one of the prime ones that did the, did the, when my peer reviewed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when that, so that went, when that got to the, uh, to the review board, oh, he says fine. So I just sailing on through, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, when they go to, when they go, ends up going through email, I mean to, uh, uh, what's, what is it, uh, amazon.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, when you get the e-books, it costs three quarters as much as one of those.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very few people survive, period, a gut shot. Very few. Your cousin, he told me, he said, I talked to the, talked to him later and he says, yeah, you know, the poison's in your system.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here I was operating with an hour, about an hour or a little over after I was hit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, and here he's about 55 years old. He died of a heart attack as he's operating on that guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I've talked, I've talked to the Mayo Clinic about that, and there's people that have written up a lot of history about that, and they've written a little bit about Sussex.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I gave a lot of information too, but, so anyway, that's the end of the story, all with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I talked to him in person, and uhm, it's getting okay, you know, to quote him. And I said, well I had a little difficulty with uhm, with the publisher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So anyway, he was, he was so glad. He said, these guys are, he said they're just full of it. He said, great, that's good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then after that, the camp was used by the others that eventually took Iwo Jima, you see, the fifth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I learned how to, you know, load the ship and be a court recorder and all that kind of stuff, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had, our LSTs all lined up side by side, and one of them blew up. A mortar shell or something, they were doing some welding or something. Anyway, a mortar shell blew up. And then fire just spread from ship to ship. And we lost, I don't know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, and I think we, we had some, we had some complications in landing due to the weather or something it was. And, and so that was part of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, that was part of it, but the main thing, they don't know exactly what caused the explosion, but they think it probably was what I just mentioned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The guys got blew up, blew up and just kept flying out and, and, uh, one of my friends, he happened to him and here he, he was able to swim, swim, uh, no, he was picked up by a boat came by and had a, they pulled a line and said, grab on. And then just dragged him over to the beach, you know. That's incredible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two of my, two of my friends were, uh, killed right there on the beach. One led to death. The other lot, the other, the other one, the same way. Basically it. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was somebody ahead of us on the beach I landed on. We were way on the northern side, northern end of the landing beach. And what happened is the tide, or whatever it was, forces further way to the left. And we had to realign a couple hundred yards further back to right again. Now, uh, the thing is, there's,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then the heavy artillery fire just all over the place. It was just pandemonium. Horrible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's either gonna be a hero or he's gonna get killed, one or the other. And then he got killed, what happened was that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, we were, we were, we were at that swamp, and there were a lot of Japanese that went on the other side, not exposed themselves yet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he's trying to get it, he walked out ahead and tried to get him to expose himself. He thought that he'd get him to surrender.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, now it's called, uh, it really is a shallon, shallon canoa. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On, on Guadalcanal, Murdoch was in there, was, was taking, taking a piss. And, uh, here the Japanese come, come in, and oh my god, turned out he was in there, one of our interpreters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What was the name for it, you know, that, kind of like the, like the, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do we call, do I call it the, the term, Mariana's Turkish shoot?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he held on because he thought the Navy could come back and take it back. Now, because he surrendered, even after the war, he was not promoted to Major.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In, in the, uh, in that, uh, that movie about, uh, Pacific.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was all about a guy that was going through a, going through some kind of a psychological thing. And here he's talking, he's talking to the, uh, the Colonel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they, they, they take a picture of something real concentrated, you see, and it's not like that at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were great. Was that one of, let's see now, the other, now what other one did they cover, besides those two?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I'm thinking primarily the one in Peleliu, I guess. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, they did run into some terrible things down there, and they were catching them from the flank, you know. Grew bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And here, I was up, I was up way inland further and I could look down and see what they were up against.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our battalion exec didn't believe that we were that far forward. So he did it. I found out later, the Westerman told me about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, I have a picture of him, too, somewhere here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not only that, uh, he had one of his very closest friends, turns out he was my company commander at this particular time. And, uh, Seltzer, his name was Seltzer. He'd been a professional dancer. And he got, he got hit by, by a large round on, on, on, uh, Tinian.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I, then I took over. Took over, I was the exec. Took over. And, uh, he went, he went to the hospital in Guadalcanal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He killed himself because he didn't want to live without one leg. Because he's a professional dancer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He didn't really know any others. Well, he did. I know. What a coincidence. I dated a gal one time. She was a, she was a, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, receptionist for William Morris Agency. And they represent a lot of the big people. Leonard Turner and all of those. Well anyway, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this was in 44, William Morris Agency. And as they came in, she told me who it was, so on, Monty Woolley and so on, as they all came in. And then I ended up, I dated her a couple of times, and one time, uh, we were in this, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So here, and then, then he, and then the guy wrote a book about him. I have the copy of the book. It's called, it's called The Last, The Last Samurai, by, by Jones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I helped, I helped the reviewer of the book before he published it. Well, so uhm, uh, ended up...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And some of our guys treated him terribly. They could not believe this guy could have done what he did. As far as giving him such a bad time. Being up there right up until after the war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one of these officers was the Prince. He was a Lieutenant General, became a Lieutenant General, and he was one of the ones standing on the Missouri.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by the way, this is what the bonsai look like here. You see that? Here we buried those bodies, we dragged them into the ditch. And we buried probably 4,000 bodies like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is the best you'll find anywhere. And in fact, that's the reason I had to review it in detail because I had some doubt about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, well, it looks like in general he's okay. He said it right. Nobody else can talk about it to that detail. Nobody can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I did go to a reunion of those people in that battalion back in Iowa.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, they were given no objective to just keep going, keep going, kill as many of us as possible until they, until they themselves lost their lives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, this is really something too. That first night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They had no idea they were going to be up there. They thought we were going to land down, down near the main town, which was called, uh, uh, well now it's called San Jose.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, when we return there, when they're in March of this year,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they all, they all, they all jumped off, off the point, this side of it. And, uh, hundreds of them jumped off their desks. And then that night, we were spread out so long, so, so thinly, we decided, I talked to my, uh, my, my company exec of that time,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what should we do? Well, I guess we're going to have to have strong points to figure whether they're likely to come through. That's what we did, and we lucked out. We tried to come through, write a strong point, so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And probably around midnight. And here we, uh, I was a company exec. And I took a platoon or maybe two platoons. And we went single file.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not a one of them shot at us as we came up very close within less than a hundred feet or so. They just put a hand grenade, she'll kill themselves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bang, bang, a hundred of them killed themselves as we walked forward. And we only had a couple of men wounded, that's all we had. And why they didn't shoot back, I don't understand. Oh, they were giving orders? Now's the time, come in here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. Yeaah. And, you know, because they brought the women in, now they can form a sixth division.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, all my friends that came back and they ended up back up preparing, preparing for that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That and, and, uh, first what's called PCS, platoon commander school. I went through the first as a captain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, and now as company commander, then the next time company commander at the basic school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, there, I was there for six years. And then, Lockheed, I was there for 23 years. And I was on, primarily on, uh, uh, the exploration of space, you know. I was on, I was involved with the first, the first flights to Mars, and the first flyby, it was a failure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We provided, we provided the vehicle that did the injection, took it to it, and it was gonna, as it flowed by and then take pictures of it, it blew by. Well, and also provided the shroud that protected it getting out of the atmosphere. Well, the shroud outgassed and blew up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And one time, one time, and then I became the, I became the president of the management association, about 3,000 members, and one time we had, we had, uh, what's his name, uh, the first on the moon, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I asked him a question and he says, sometimes you look up there at night time and you have to kind of pinch yourself. I was really there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some talking to people, but mostly I'm talking to the natives, I'm talking to the Japanese, uh, I'm describing what it's like now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tirely different, and I didn't even intend to write this, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I got, you know, here I had all of these, all these tapes, and not only that, a little, little tape recorder, and the one Japanese I ran to, Akio Tani, he was doing the same thing. So anything I sent, he was recording, and so on. And so that's when I decided, okay, that was 82, then 85, well in 83 I took a group out as a tour guide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, 85, I went, I went to Japan and went on Space A. And, uh, so here I interviewed him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that was, that was really interesting, I'll tell you. This guy, this guy, Tanny, he drove me all over the place. Yasakuni Shrine, and the, you know, the, uh, Empress Palace and all that kind of stuff. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he made it, and it, it would, uh, it was radio controlled, and it would fly, it would fire from the guns with a photo flash.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he came down with cancer and we, we, we, we corresponded for about 15 years. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So then he wondered, here he had this thing, what should I do? It said, well, uh, you know, there's, there's a museum back in Kalamazoo, uh, Gottle Canal Veterans, and he did, he sent it back there, and it's in the museum now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. I have a picture of it in my book this summer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then here, I have a lot of little cartoons he drew. I said, what happened here? And so he drew it out, this is what happened. Or he'd send me something about here,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Second Lieutenant Burke didn't learn nearly as much as he should have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and you can see two different people say or do the same thing, but be like, hey, this guy's leading and this guy's sorta not. You know, he's doing something else, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I forget her name, something, Burnham. Anyway, says to the lady, uh, call me crazy, but it's my philosophy that in order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know. No, I'm not even kidding. Because, you know, you could tell someone, even now, like if they don't have the guidelines, like a for real comprehensive...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It doesn't really work as well. Yeah, alright. Cool, I'm waiting for that book too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wait, what do you mean ancient techniques? I'm just saying that because it sounds cool. Yeah, it sounds cool. Yes, sir. Yeah, I probably could write a little book on that just by watching you do certain stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's a, and I, it's a good idea actually. And he said, this is how I'm going to execute, you know, whatever. Actually, there's so many different scenarios, but okay, this one, okay, here's it, here's my plan, uhm, in, in, it's a, I'm starting


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then years go by and I never execute. I never call somebody up to help execute it. You know, I'm just done. That was just my idea that I intended. He went into the graveyard. And then you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Say, that is a good idea. I, unlike you, have the capability to actually execute most of this, and I know the other guy who can execute the rest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meanwhile, me, I don't, I don't have any capability and I don't know anyone. I'd have to go shopping for my, and I simply didn't do it, right? Let's say you say, okay, and you execute the plan and be successful in your new thing, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that like a violation or wha- how do you feel about that? Cause you know that happens a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so he's gonna think, let's say I'm the idea guy in this particular scenario and you're the guy who can actually make it happen, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, not how to do it, but just the idea, like, eh, that was my idea, you know, like on Seinfeld. It was my idea for the cologne that smells like the beach. Anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, bruh, not only did you not execute, like, I don't even know if you could, really.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, they're like, oh, wouldn't it be cool to have an app that can read people's minds? That's not a real one, but I'm just saying. Meanwhile, they have no idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, man, I always, I kind of feel, it's weird because when you think about it, let's say, I don't know, you're a lot more mature than most of us. I'm not saying, I'm not saying, I'm seeing your attitude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, okay, okay, I know, I understand, but the reason I'm saying this, you understand, because this immaturity versus maturity applies to it no matter what age. So, let's say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like, just in passing, like, that's my cool idea. First off, not only do I not know anything about surfboard making, it's like, bruh, I didn't really even mean, like, you should really do that and let's go into business. I didn't mean anything, like Ty just said it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Meanwhile, it's stuck in the guy's head, where he's like, yeaah, I could totally do that. And no one's doing that. And he does it, becomes massively successful. Right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Most of us will have at least 1% of our little brain saying like, oh man, like, that's my idea, like I deserve part of it or something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, in under certain circumstances. Yeaah, of course. I'm throwing it out there as kind of a generality. I agree with you even 110%. You think I couldn't agree with you 110%? Apparently you just did. I think the idea part of it is worth less. Cause everyone is like, okay, okay, here's my idea. I'm saying it publicly, straight up. Here's my idea. A pill that cures cancer. Just cures it. Just saying. That's a good idea, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well all these app ideas are like kinda like that. It's like you don't even- most of us don't know even how apps work as far as making them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, yeaah, and that kinda goes back to wha-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In a way, so you know how, back to what you said where it's like, okay, if you got an idea from somebody, and then you actually executed the idea and made it successful when they had no capability or intention, by the way,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah, especially when they do it all the time. What if someone had the idea, and forgive me for stringing this out, but I'm trying to see, I'm trying to identify your threshold, you see what I'm saying?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What if the idea was said by someone that you don't know in passing and it was a joke?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wasn't even like a for real idea, like it was a joke, like you were like, oh let's, we should invent a parachute that, like, can,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like it makes you mad a little bit more when a person is like, hey, that was my idea. It's like, bro, you're like, you're, you're a low utility person. You don't execute on anything ever. And now this was your idea and you somehow deserve like something for the success of the idea. Meanwhile, you provided.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, man. It's not like you actively were like, hey, you're a yes man and I don't really hang out with you that much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. Same with Dave. And you trust him because that's your boy, your friend or whatever, right? Um, versus the person who's like actively surrounding themself with people who are not yes men, right? But the two of you street kind of goes where if


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not saying celebrities are like this, but some people in the world are like this where it's like, hey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, man, that's so good because you, and you, and you know, you put it, you're the one who put it like this where it's like you don't emotionally attach yourself to the plan, but I guess that's the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not gonna say I've gone through this. I'm not gonna say I've not gone through this, but you know, you show someone a video that you might have made, or whatever, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're like, you say, hey, you know, tell me what you think of this video before you release it or something like that. And really, when you really be honest, this is what it is. Half of your brain is like, hey, I need some feedback to make it the best I can and let me give you a look just so I can get some good feedback, you know, on improving it. That's half. The other half of your brain is kind of like, hey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is kind of the premiere a little bit and I want to get rewarded for my work, you know, with, with, you know, praise and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, like on a logical level almost, you know, not like, hey that wasn't cool, you put down that, my writing, you know, like not that attitude, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not how awesome it is, it's like there's a problem with this and I need this problem to be solved and this person can solve it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that's man, that's so good. Cause it's almost like, cause they're two different people, they're two different roles you're asking this person to be. Do you want this person to be an audience member?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they're, essentially it's almost like you're constantly in touch with how they're feeling about you kind of thing as a, as a worker or as whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They'll be like, good job. Every little thing is either a good job or hey, you could do this a little bit better. Every single little thing, right? So it's like, you kind of know where you stand and it's kind of comforting, I guess, in that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You'll know about the corrections for sure, but they tend, and I'm speaking from experience more than anything, they tend to be like big corrections if you have to make a, you know, cause it's, if it's no factor corrections where it's like, eh, you know, whatever, like fine, it's a 80%


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah. Sleeping gets a bad rap, I guess. Now that you kinda mention it. You know how, sleeping on the job, sleeping on the job, that's not a good expression. Like that expression is not a positive expression. Yes, that's it. Like hey, if you're sleeping on the job,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah bruh, if you're sleep deprived, a lot of times you're no good to nobody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I don't think it's true. I think the reality of it is that different people are different and it's gonna affect people in different ways and generally speaking, you know, getting adequate rest is better than not getting adequate rest. There's no doubt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting. The, okay, so there is, I'm not going to, I don't know the studies, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you believe that you got enough sleep, it affects your capacity. So like, that almost suggests like, man, if you're just like, I'm gonna BTF through this 100% and that's your attitude, that will help your cognitive capacity, even if you didn't get that much sleep. And I think I'm, I meant more than anything where it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To kind of identify, what is character, do you think, like, what, just kind of moral, like, your...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fiber, you know, it's not, cause it's not like, you can talk to pretty much anyone and they'd probably tell you, yeah, like, I'm a different person than I was 15 years ago. Pretty much everyone would be like, okay, that wouldn't be a big surprise or whatever, but they're not talking about that, right? Like, character is different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Collectively be considered character, you know, but I think yeah, I think people can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, maybe in the, maybe on the battlefield maybe it's, it's more rare, you know, like to the point where he's writing straight up, it can't be changed, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. Right, you get burned by someone. You get burned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where it's kind of like, man, my whole life is like, if you don't lie and cheat and steal, you kind of don't live. You know, you kind of don't survive kind of in this environment or something like that. Yeah, that would make sense too, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're both true, too. And they're both true. Yeaah. Yeaah. Yeah, man. Yeaah. It gets real complicated. In the luck thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But then it's like, at the same time, you can be like, well, even in a great, uh, result, like a scenario with a great result, you could have been even more lucky. There are possible, you know, so it's like, especially when you want to point your finger, you know, and be like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Less lucky, and still had a great result kind of thing, and, and then it goes down from there and it can go up from there too. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like to take any time to label it luck as the thing. I mean, there are extreme scenarios for sure. Oh yea, like you win the lottery, that's lucky. You know, technically in and of itself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not the whole deal at all, and it's just like, it's like, if you, you gotta, let's say this, luck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is the, the result, right? Of some, something, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now you can start evaluating, okay, was it hard work? And then with that hard work, it's like, okay, what luck, is there luck in that hard work kind of thing? Or did they just win the lottery? Okay, that's, you know, that's a big lucky thing kind of thing. But you're just talking about the $20 million in the account. You're not talking about his whole life. You're not talking about any of that. You're just talking about a very specific scenario.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's why I think sometimes people get jammed up. And they'll evaluate this whole big resulting scenario. Not a specific element in it, a big resulting scenario. Like, oh, this person's the whatever, you know, successful in this way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Improve the skills, increase the skills, one skill being jiu-jitsu. Jiu-jitsu is an important skill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To increase and maintain our capability. Jujitsu is one of them. Keep working out. If you're not working out, work out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, when we're doing jiu-jitsu, we need a gi, we need rash guards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go to origin main, the state main origin main.com. This is where you can get all this stuff. Okay. So all this stuff that I'm talking about, like Jocko so eloquently put it is made in America.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From the beginnings of the, of the materials.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Switched the tag out here up in, you know, Long Beach and so it's made here. Technically, you know, and hey, look, no one's mad at that. That's cool. But. Some people are mad at it. Well some people are, yes sir, you're right, I'm wrong, alright. Stand corrected for sure. But.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Made it America. So, like we said, geese, rash guards, jeans, American denim.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Other things, joggers, sweatsuits, various apparel, clothing items, boots!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't want to say mistake, but you know when you're like, when you kind of see the origin boots, they kind of have a gravitas to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is the perfect way to put it, yes. Yes sir.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. Also, Jaco Fuel. Okay, so I was talking about staying healthy, staying capable, all this stuff. Like, hey man, supplementation is part of that, that whole deal. So. Important. Very important.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You won't know how important it is until your joints start giving up. Your joints start quitting workouts. You know, when your elbows are all sore, when you're trying to, you know, get under the bench and stuff. Trust me, it's no good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you know, I- Citrus Psycho. Yeah, I had the Tropic Thunder one earlier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is something. You see what I'm saying? Like, the need to taste good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, don't do that. Don't do that, please. Check. So anyway, yes, malt, protein, in the form of a dessert, all for it, 100%. Jocko white tea, also, you want something a little bit lighter, organic, refreshing, if you drink it as iced tea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, I dig it. Also, we have a store. Jocko has a store, it's called Jocko's Store. Where you can get your apparel. Apparel's cool, right? Yeaah. I mean the word apparel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Merch. That was the one. I think the kids are saying that nowadays. Merch. Which is cool. I dig it. Anyway. Merch. If you want to buy a t-shirt that says discipline equals freedom. Boom. Get it there at jockelstore.com. You want to see, or you want to get a shirt that says good. Written across the front. Good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All that stuff. Hoodies. Lightweight and heavy. Tank tops. All this stuff. Yes. JockoStore.com. That's where you can get this cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I thought it was? I thought it was, nice night for a walk, eh? And the other person says, nice night for a walk. Then you say, wash day tomorrow. Nothing clean, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then, the other person says, nothing clean right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, yes, and also subscribe if you haven't already on all the podcasting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stay clean. Stay clean. Also we have a YouTube channel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, well, we had some help by some very capable people, and yeaah, they let us know that yeaah, we're official.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is Jocko Podcast number 235 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo. Good evening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In their assessment, and my assessment was that they actually didn't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My guess is they didn't want to get his hopes up, but at the same time, they didn't want to crush his morale either.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Cowie is the seal that I wrote about in the opening of the book, The Dichotomy of Leadership. This is the seal that told me he wanted to stay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Better medical facilities with more capabilities to see if he could keep his leg.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're kinda standing there talking to him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kinda saying goodbye because we know he has to go. The brigade commander walked in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'd spent a little bit of time with the brigade commander at this point. I briefed him on our capabilities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Been in some planning meetings, seen him out on the streets during a few operations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was very well respected amongst his troops.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The troops that we were working with, army and marines, and his brigade combat team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The second brigade combat team of the 28th Infantry Division.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The iron soldiers, they had been fighting in Ramadi for almost a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we, from SEAL Team 3 task unit bruiser, we had nothing but the highest


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Respect and admiration for all of them. They were professional.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were aggressive. They were courageous. And let there be no doubt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That the soldiers and the marines from the 228 saved the lives of some of the SEALs and Task Unit Bruiser.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where we should go and where we shouldn't go. They advised us on what to do and what not to do. They rolled out and guided us on operations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they did an outstanding job taking the fight to the enemy. And at this point when, when Kawe got wounded,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this was the first significantly wounded seal in tasking a bruiser.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this brigade commander, Colonel John Gronsky, was there to pin a purple heart on Cowie's chest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what I could tell is I could tell that he cared.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the last year awarded Purple Hearts to combat wounded soldiers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And each time I could tell that it mattered and each time I could tell that it left a mark.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That the Colonel had also sent many men on their final flights home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Colonel Gronski had lost scores of men at this point killed in action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I watched as Colonel Gronsky spoke quietly to Cowie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Cali was soon on a helicopter heading out of Ramadi.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But he was our first and he was my first significantly wounded man while in a leadership position.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you know anything about me, you know that I'm trying to learn constantly, and I learned from the Colonel that day. The way he acted. The way he carried himself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tragedies would not discourage his determination.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I could also see that he cared, that he truly cared about Cali.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I knew that Colonel Gronsky had been there for


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To bear that burden of command to do my duty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Strange thing because those memories of war, sometimes they feel like a long time ago.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's an honor today to have the opportunity to learn some more from that Colonel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Although he is no longer a colonel. He's no longer in the army. He retired as a two-star general. A major general who just wrote a book called The Ride of Our Lives and he is here with us today. General Gronsky, thank you for coming on the program.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, it's uh, it was really weird to see, I was sitting in my car as you pulled up into the parking lot today. And, you know what, I mean obviously I haven't seen you since the spring of 2006.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember meeting you for the first time. I don't know if you'll remember meeting me for the first time, and I know it's uhm, you know, as the brigade commander, you're meeting people all the time, people are coming in and out. When I met you for the first time, I went to your tactical operations center. And,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right as I arrived. So we had been on the ground for just a matter of days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I walked in and as I walk into your tactical operations center.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The report comes in that one of my SEAL snipers


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's actually, uh, BTF Tony had just killed an IED emplacer up on Firecracker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that kind of got announced in the tactical operations center and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You heard it. And I knew who you were because I had


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just that, that announcement, following that announcement, you walked from the talk into your office and then people walked me into your office. It was the best introduction a human being could ever want in a combat situation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you looked at me and, and you said, that's one of your guys that just killed us, uh, an IED in Placer. I said, yes sir.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you immediately said, I need your guys over in Eastern Ramadi. And I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We will go wherever you want us to go. Wherever there's bad guys. And that was how the deployment kicked off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It felt good. I mean I could see the looks on the people in the, in the tactical operations center.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The looks on their faces that we just killed an IED in place or that was right where in firecracker a few days prior an IED had killed several marines and so often


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The enemy just, you know, and Ramadi would just disappear. They'd take their shots, they'd do their thing, and then they'd disappear.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, let's, let's, let's go back cause, you know, we, we all, everyone wants to know about you, who you are. Uhm, and I wanna start off actually by reading a little chunk of, of your book. To kinda give a little background to everybody.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, the book is called The Ride of Our Lives. It just came out, I think in February. So, I'm gonna read this chunk right here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My dad, Paul Xavier Gronski Sr., was raised by his mother, a Polish immigrant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My grandmother never learned to speak English well. She owned a small grocery store selling primarily candy and cigarettes. My paternal grandfather, also a Polish immigrant,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Died in an accident in the coal mines near Scranton when my grandmother was five months pregnant with my dad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The son of a single parent. My father was forced to quit school after the seventh grade so he could work and help support the family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My dad served overseas during World War II in the US Army Air Corps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dad opened a garage in 1954 doing minor car repairs and selling used tires. Soon he bought cars to fix up and sell and so began his venture into the used car business. His family and his business were growing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But dad and my entire family faced a devastating setback in 1956 when my mother passed away when I was very young.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dad became a single parent with seven children to raise and a business to run. It was a severe blow. But dad fought through it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By outward measures, my father was unimpressive. Standing five feet six inches tall, dad weighed about 135 pounds. But my dad was a grinder. And he had the blood of an entrepreneur.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Through sheer hard work and desire, he raised his children while building an enterprise that included a garage, used car sales, a towing service, a boat sales and service business, and a bike shop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Known as Paul Gronsky Enterprises, Dad's business became a landmark in Northeastern Pennsylvania.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a pretty memorable story. I'd be proud of that story. Right. And, and what was it growing up? I mean obviously you got, you got no mom at home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, look, I got four kids and I got a, my wife is a stay at home mom. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I could barely control the chaos and mayhem going on when they were little. That must have been complete insanity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and that's like, uh, 10 or 11 year olds, when they have responsibility put on them, they can pick it up and they can do a lot. Exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, uh, going to school and everything, I mean, what was, what was, what kind of school did you go to?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How big was your school? Was it a big school? Did you go to high school in Scranton?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At what point did you start viewing the military as an option?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, I gotta, I gotta pick up the book here for a second to read through that kind of decision making process, cause...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I'll just go to the book. You say here, after serving at Fort Lewis for about two years, I left active duty in the army in the fall of 1982. We stayed at Tacoma, Washington, where I worked as an alcoholism counselor, and Bertie worked at, that's your wife, Bertie, worked as a nurse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We enjoyed living in the northwest, but we decided to move to Musick for a variety of reasons. First, my dad was getting older. I wanted to spend time with him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I also wanted to raise my family near my brothers, sisters and friends back in Pennsylvania.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you say at the humble kitchen table, plans are hatched and important life decisions are made. Homes are mortgaged, insurance policies are purchased, and weddings are planned.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The kitchen table is remarkable. In the winter of 1982-83, it was at our kitchen table where two important decisions were made. The first decision was to leave Tacoma, Washington in the Great Northwest and relocate to my hometown of Mooseick, Pennsylvania.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The second decision was a bit more adventurous. We decided to make the trip by bicycle. The trip would be self supported, meaning we would carry our belongings on our bicycles in packs known as panniers. Am I saying that right? Yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was nothing we could do about controlling the weight of this growing boy. We would adjust elsewhere.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, so you make this decision to, uh, that you're gonna bike across the country. Did you, had you done any long distance biking before this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you kind of did a little maneuver to get her to say yes to this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is a, is a great kind of recollection. Did you take notes during this?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, and you got a bunch of great stories, and really, you know, the-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, uh, the subtitle of the book is Lessons on Life, Leadership and Love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you've got, you tell the story and you also work in a bunch of, you know, lessons that you're learning along the way. You've got some stories in here that are funny, some of them are not so funny. You've got this situation here, you're, and in fact, obviously I'm fast forwarding through the book, I'm skipping around, but at this point you would, you would, you would,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talk to a farmer to see if you could stay the night in his field, which was, what's the other weird thing about this book? In modern day, in the year 2020,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] People, a lot of people were, hey yeaah, no problem, you know, come on in. You know, we'll make, we're making dinner, you want some hot dogs, whatever. So that, that was neat. But at this time, you, you had set up in this field, nice,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nice open field, there's dry grass everywhere, tall dry grass, and you sleep the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I looked to the beginning of a great day until I got clumsy. Just as our pot of water reached a boil, for our second cup of coffee, my left foot kicked over the camp stove.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This sun-drenched carefree morning immediately turned chaotic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Birdie righted the stove and I put my firefighting skills to the test. My only chance was to create a fire break by stamping down the tall grass and that's exactly what I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It worked. The fire fizzled out after burning only a few square yards of the field. It was a frantic way to begin our morning. There was no fire or smoke damage to our tent, sleeping bags, bicycles, or to Steven's trailer. That's your, now I think when you left you was 18 months? 15 months old when we started.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Steven did not recognize the seriousness of the situation. We had a hard time getting him to stop laughing at our antics. So this is the kind of, this is the kind of things that you talk about in this book. Uhm, some of the lessons that you learn, you know, another section here. You're just talking about what you're learning. It says,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Throughout our cross-country bike journey, we were faced with countless decisions about which way to go and which path to take. What I learned was that the path we decided upon


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was always the right one. It was not so much about which path we chose, but how we chose to negotiate it. It was all about attitude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So those are some of the lessons that you learned on this trip.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The books, the books really just kind of filled with a bunch of, you know, funny stories, good stories, lessons learned, uh, and people definitely get this book so that you can kind of, kind of get that background. But eventually, you, you make it across country. You make it back to music, PA.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And there's all these things that happen along the way. You kind of become a minor celebrity. A minor celebrity in the biking world for sure.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe in the country, but in music PA, it's like you're a town hero. Right. Or, and maybe it's Steven, your son is the ultimate town hero. Cause he's the poor kid that had to, you know, survive with his crazy parents who biked across the states with him in a trailer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when you get back now, you're out of the army, and you know you're going into, what's the business now morphed into?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so I got that wrong. You didn't stay in the reserves. You had actually left active duty completely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, explain the difference between the reserves and the National Guard. I think everyone knows what active duty is. Active duty is what you think of when you think of the military. You're in the military. You're in the army. You're in the Navy. You're in the Air Force. You're in the Marine Corps. You're in the Coast Guard. You're in one of those. That's what you do every day. That's the deal. Reserves and National Guard. Explain those a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's usually the National Guard that gets called up when a hurricane hits, when there's bad weather, when something like that happens, even some kind of civil unrest. Yes. It's generally the National Guard because they are controlled by the state's governors.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, so, so, that life is similar to the reserves, I assume, and I remember this since I was a little kid. I would hear on the news, or hear the advertisement, they'd say, uh, one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How about the first Gulf War? Any impact on the first Gulf War?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're doing two weeks in the summertime. And other than that, you're living your life. You're building the business. You're selling boats and bicycles and cars and all that. Towing stuff. And you're raising your kids. How many kids?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this whole time, you're getting advanced in rank, right? And this is something that we would always, hmm, what's a nice way of putting this? So in the SEAL teams, there's reserve SEALs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the, but there's not many of them. There's more now. Okay, let me rephrase this. When I was younger in the SEAL teams, there was not a lot of reserve SEALs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No one really even knew about it. And most guys just frankly stayed in the SEAL teams. And if they got out, they got out. They were done. Right. You know, they got out. And so there wasn't a lot of reserves. So guys that were in the reserves.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's what's happening while you're in the reserves, or the National Guard, even though you're only working one weekend a month, you're still advancing in order.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and I don't know if it's like that anymore, and I don't even know if it's just the way that I was raised by the guys that would look at the reservists and say, that guy only made rank because he's in the reserves, otherwise he's too much of an idiot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it might have just been some prejudice against the reserves that was instilled in me by, by the active duty guys. But uhm, but yeaah, I guess my point is for people that don't, uh, that don't understand the National Guard reserves is that you're still advancing in your career.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, my SEALs, when I was the training commander out on the west coast, I had a pack of guys and that's what they did. They, they not only taught, but then they were OPFOR as well. And the thing that, the thing that is very important about it, there's multiple things that are very important about it. Number one,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The seals that we put through training were never going to face a tougher enemy than the other seals that were playing Op4. Never. There would never be, there's never gonna be a tougher enemy, ever. And number two, when you're on Op4, you learn how to think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the bad guys. You learn what it looks like. You learn how to set things up. And so then you can counter those tactics. So it's a, it's a very important, it's a very important learning process. So for you guys, and you probably went out there for a pretty big chunk of time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did they send you to any schools or anything when you became an infantry officer?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you're a cap suit, but you go to ranger school, you go to the infantry officer's course, so now you're starting to feel like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And obviously it was, was your dad still running the business? Yes. Yep. And so he took, he was okay with you being gone for...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did he ride you about it or was he stoked on it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And yeaah, that's, yeaah, you said he was in the, in the Army Air Corps. Yeah. What, so what year did you graduate from Ranger school?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's, so the gulf war happened while you were at the infantry course. Right. What were you thinking about that? Was it just kind of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The goal for goes over really quick. Do you remember so I remember so I was I


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Graduated bootcamp. I went to bootcamp in September, September 13th, 1990.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the war kicked off after that, but I remember I'm watching CNN with a bunch of other Navy guys, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The report, CNN was saying there's gonna be 40,000 casualties in the first 48 hours. Right. I remember that. And I remember thinking, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get mine. Cause you know, I was, I mean, you might have thought you wanted to go to war when you were 33 years old.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember watching that thinking, oh I'm definitely gonna get a chance because if there's 40,000 casualties that means this thing's gonna last a while and that means I'll be able to go. Oh yeaah. Which I know, I know people, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know it's hard to understand that concept of wanting to go to war, but hey, you're young, you're dumb.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that, that war, like you said, is over 100 hours and now you're back to work, you're, you're, you're back hawking bicycles. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Time goes by, you're still getting advanced in rank, eventually you make major.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that, that mission, the Lithuania trip that was one year,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then September 11th happens. And now you deploy again. As a, as a brigade commander.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And at this point, one of your sons is in the reserves or is in the National Guard?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so you're seeing September 11th unfold. Yep. At what point are you thinking that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the call might come to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did they put your, uh, your general selection on hold?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And luckily you found this out as soon as the workup kinda started, as soon as the training started. Yeah. You went down there on, so you missed two days, right? I mean. Yeah. You missed nothing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How, how well did the workup prepare you? The training cycle that you did and you guys went out to Fort Irwin as well, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, the, what did you guys have for armor?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did you guys deploy all at once and straight into Ramadi? Is that how it happened or how did it or how should I say how did it happen?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what, it's interesting, I'm thinking about a podcast that we, or actually a couple podcasts that we just did about the Boer War, and the British went down there, and what's interesting is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was only a very small part that I, that I mentioned and the reason I mentioned it on the podcast was because the, the T.A.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is the territorial army, which is the reserves in, in England.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was a, they gave several examples, but one specific example where the guys that were reservists, so the guys that weren't professional soldiers,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In many cases, we're the first ones to say, hey, wait a second, the way we're doing this doesn't make sense. Yep. And they, so they had, I would, I guess, they had their, their, their minds were more open, and, and they were,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They could adapt, where they weren't so rigid, and I thought, I was, I was thinking when you were saying, oh they made a decision to send the, the, you know, the National Guard there, if I was the commander, that may be something that you wait and go, look, I need someone that's gonna attack this problem, maybe a little bit different, so that's an interesting concept, but,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also just knowing, you know, I mentioned this at the beginning, the effort that your soldiers and marines took to take care of us when we showed up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was gonna go, he was getting, uh, uh, from a special operations group, was gonna do an operation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was gonna take some of his, you know, his seals and his Iraqi soldiers. They were gonna go and help them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he brought it to, he brought the plan to one of, you know, one of your majors. Out of Vermont, I wanna say.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I do too. And I mean he's just, and he looked at Leif and said, if you go down the street you're gonna get blown up. And you know what Leif said? Leif, you know, a SEAL team guy, a special operations guy said, thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you all helped us so much when we got on the ground. And just the, the, the other thing, you know, we just had complete respect and admiration, as I said in the beginning, because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're looking at you get, you know, a lot of the, a lot of you all are looking at us like, oh these guys are highly trained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're looking back at you saying, you've been in gunfights every day for the last 11 months. So, I can't say enough to thank you and everybody from that brigade that was there on the ground that welcomed us, that didn't give us any attitude, that didn't give us any, they just wanted to help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was just, it was an awesome thing to, to be a part of and to see.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When you got on the ground, like what was the first thing that you said to yourself, uh, this is real?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How did you, what was your approach when you showed up? So uhm, by the time we got there in April of 06, you guys had really secured like all the main MSRs going in and out of the city. Yes. What was your, what was your kind of larger operational approach when you showed up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and I think that's, well, once the 1-1 showed up, they had enough people that we could go in, set up a combat outpost, and then what you're doing is patrolling to clear bad guys because you're there and it's a different game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you, you mentioned the murder and intimidation of the shakes, and this was all happening, I mean, I arrived in May. Yes, I arrived in May. And so this was kind of, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was it still happening? I remember we're reading the intel reports and, and from what I remember,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was like a one 48 hour period or one very short period of time where


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seven or eight senior shakes were murdered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the rest of them, almost all of the rest of them, well, a large portion of the rest of them, left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and just to give a little bit more detail, just to reemphasize what you said, these are 500 local citizens that are tribal tribesmen where the tribal leaders are directing them, hey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Looks like the coalition, looks like the Americans, they kind of were getting on board.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Go down and join the police so we can get rid of the insurgents in this city.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've heard him referred to as the shake of shakes. He was one of these guys that kind of got it. Absolutely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How long after the glass factory bombing, so then the recruits start showing up again, the insurgents realize, oh we haven't broken their will yet, we gotta start killing the shakes. Was that a week later, two weeks later?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The intel that I remember was, I think it was seven or eight of the main sheiks got murdered. Yes. And then the other sheiks, most of them just fled.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And really, that's the purpose. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's terror, right? We are going to terrorize you to the point where you no longer will step up. And that's exactly what happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You mentioned, uh, this very briefly, but you know, you just mentioned being out, and I remember, uh, being out on, on an operation somewhere, and there you are. You know, there's the brigade commander walking down the street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you, you just said you were gonna mention a little bit about what that mentality was. I mean, I...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty sure I know what it is because I did the same things, like sometimes I was going on operations with my troops because I need to go on operations with the troops. Was that a similar mindset that you had?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How was it, you know, you show up and there was already a marine battalion already there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was there any time, you know, people always talk about the competition between the army, the Marine Corps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not even going to say Navy because the Navy makes up such a small element, but you know, the Army and Marine Corps, I, I always tell anyone and, and, and as a matter of fact, it's sort of a point for me. If anybody ever tries to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, get me to say something about the Army and the Marine Corps. I won't say. I won't say a negative comment, not even in a joking manner. I won't do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because of what I saw over there. What I saw from those soldiers, what I saw from those marines.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did, did you feel the same thing? Just nothing but uhm, you know, nothing but nothing but let's work together to get this done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've heard you tell a story about uhm, one of your, one of your marines, EOD guys, and really just an


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would love for you to be able to share that story and I think you know the one I'm talking about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, uh, the, the, some of the other things that are happening is you're spending a bunch of money trying to, you know, uhm, uhm, the provincial reconstruction and development. Tell us a little bit about that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we're talking about extreme ownership a little bit earlier and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know the, the, I opened it up talking about a Blue on Blue that we had. You were there at the time and I know there was a lot of different stuff going on and it probably didn't even make the radar of what you had seen and what you were dealing with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having a blue on blue is, it seems like the most impossible thing that could ever occur. You know, how could it possibly happen that one of a good guy shoots a good guy? How is that possible?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This, this happens. This happens a lot in this environment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, what was, how often were you seeing those situations unfold?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, the other part of that is not getting emotional because as you know and we were talking about earlier I think before we even started recording is a lot of times


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You wouldn't see who's attacking you. Right. And you're losing guys. Guys are getting wounded, guys are getting killed, and now all of a sudden someone's telling you we see the bad guys?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's hard not to just have an emotional moment to say, hey, oh, there's bad guys there, let's get em'. Yes. And you have to take a moment to make sure that the decision you're making is, is the right decision. And, and like you said, sometimes,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a pause, and I've been talking about this a lot lately. So, one of the principles of leadership that I talk about all the time is default aggressive. Which means, you're gonna make something happen. Make it happen. Like, like, don't wait. But there's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you pay attention to that term, default aggressive, it's the default mode.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not, it's not the mandatory mode. It can be overruled. It can be overridden. The, the Marine Corps just came out with a new book called Learning. And, and one of the, one of the terms that they use throughout the book is they try to train Marines to have a bias for action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Same thing. It's not blind action. It's not take immediate action no matter what. It's lean towards taking action. That's the same thing with default aggressive. It's, hey, your default mode is I'm gonna be aggressive. That doesn't mean you are necessarily going to be aggressive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I think that's the, that's the standard, that's the standard, that's what, that's, that's the American way. You know, that's another thing, and we've talked about this a little bit, and this is...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, I don't like to get wrapped up in, in, you know, people that are gonna...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] argue political points about, you know, the way things unfolded, that, the way things unfolded, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But one of the things that you hear a lot is people will talk about,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Iraq war as this complete horrible thing. Everything was wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and something that I try and point out to people all the time is, yes, you're right, civilians died. And yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Americans did kill some of those civilians, but we went through extreme measures and took extreme risks always to prevent any civilian casualties. And the amount of civilians that Americans actually killed,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is not a big number. The reason that the number of civilians killed is so large.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is because of the insurgence and because of the, the, the fighting that took place in the, you know, Shia versus Sunni, for instance. It, it really, the, the amount of civilians killed by


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Americans is a very small number when you compare it to what the insurgents did to the people of Iraq.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From a leadership perspective and really from a personal perspective as well. I mean, I know there was months where you lost.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lost, took very significant casualties. You know, and, and when I look at the glass factory and what a just, just insane setback.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And even hearing you talk about it earlier when we weren't recording, you know, just the, the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know that, that for you, seeing the local populace showing up, I mean this is the, this is the dream for a, for a counter insurgency is that we're gonna get the local populace they're gonna take to the streets and clean up the insurgence and this is how we win and all of a sudden in a matter of days, a pathway to victory is actually visible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then to have that, uh, horrible incident take place. Losing, you know, your best friend over there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, what is it about, how do you do that mentally? How do you get up? How do you move forward when you take these significant setbacks?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As you guys are nearing the end of deployment, I show up there with Task Unit Bruiser. One of the first things that we start planning for is like a Fallujah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seems like a long time ago in some ways, and this is one of those ways, trying to remember exactly, but the plan that, as I remembered as we were starting to organize this thing, was that while, when the 11AD showed up,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It made sense to me because, this is why I told my guys, I said, look, I think this is gonna happen, and the reason I think it's gonna happen is because Maliki, who just is the Prime Minister, and he's a Shia, and this is a city filled with Sunni people, and I bet he's gonna say, yup, go for it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I happen to be wrong and Maliki was a lot smarter and was a lot, a lot more willing to try and work towards a stable Iraq because he realized that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, actually, we're not gonna do that. There's too much death, there's too much destruction. It will look exactly like what it is, which is a big Shia army push into a city filled with Sunnis and a bunch of Sunnis getting displaced and it'll be bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I actually, uh, on one of my podcasts was discussing this with one of my friends Daryl, and he had read some information that that was all


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the, the, uh, plan for a big push through was actually kind of a faint to try and get insurgents to leave. And I, I don't know if it's true or not. I don't know if you know it's true or not. Uh, what, what, what do you remember about that?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was in between my first deployment to Iraq and my second deployment to Iraq.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was the admiral's aide, so I worked for the admiral in charge of all the SEALs. Great guy. And that put me in a lot of meetings. A lot of meetings that, uh, 03 would never be in. Some of those meetings in the Pentagon, with the highest, you know, the highest leaders in the military. And I saw that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I saw that there was people inside the military that were wondering if we could win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And wondering how we could win, if we could win. You know, the, the report that came out in, in that, that summer in 06 said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That both those options were on the board actually kind of makes sense because you had, I guarantee you had some people saying, we can't win, we can't win in that area. Uhm, and then, and obviously some people saying, hey we can, we just need to get the combat power that's needed and we need to commit to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My, my task unit, what was good about my task unit, and I think what was really appreciated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was we could kill those bad guys. And we could kill those bad guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was, you know, you could see, you know, you talk to a company commander and any one of those company commanders that were out there, they'd go out, they'd get in patrol, they'd get in a gunfight, they'd shoot at some people they wouldn't really know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We would leave dead bodies in the streets of the insurgents. And it was of the insurgents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that just seemed to be a really good asset and something that made the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Made the conventional guys, man, they were, they were so happy when we'd show up at one of their, one of their combat outposts. They would be so happy for us to show up there because they knew that they'd send out a patrol and they'd get in a gunfight for sure. And sometimes they'd kill a bad guy, but they knew that we would, we would rack up these kills. And what's,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's good about it is it allowed us to eliminate the bad guys.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] While protecting the pop- the populace. So it was a great tool in this environment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To help out. And that was, you know, that's one of the main things that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That people talk to me about is, you know, how do you build relationships, right? And how do you build relationships with people? And for me, it's real simple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You build a relationship by saying, how can I help you? And that's why when I walked into your office,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you've got, you know, 6,000, I guess you include Iraqis, 10,000 troops there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm not thinking about me, and what can I do? I'm thinking what, how can I help you? And that's the attitude, and that's the same attitude we took with the 11AD. When they showed up, it wasn't, hey, we're here. It was, what can we do to help you? How can we, what do you need from us? How can we be of assistance?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, and then the relationship is, oh, we, we can definitely use your help. And then guess what? They give back to us help. So it was pretty, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's just that it shows you the power of the American military to have that kind of attitude, you know, because.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're not even talking about the fact that these guys are doing combat operation after combat operation after combat operation in the Malab district with subsurface IEDs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Destroying tanks, destroying humvees, uh, you know, these coordinated attacks that they're doing, the vehicle-borne IEDs. I mean, you were talking about the, uh, the checkpoint on the railroad. Right in between Tameem and South Central Ramadi. That is one, that is a checkpoint that got


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Overrun. It got overrun by the enemy. Massive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Iraqi soldiers killed and wounded. Most of the Iraqi soldiers deserted after that and never came back. But that's the kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The, the enemy there was really good. Yeaah. And they used the same, they, they, they used combined arms, you know, between RPGs and mortars and machine guns and then vehicle borne IEDs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They coordinated over the radio, they had medevac procedures, I mean they did what, what military units did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, it's really interesting, that's full spectrum between a Fallujah style clearance and a hey we're leaving and not coming back. Yea, yea. That, that shows you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, we, we start getting towards the end of your deployment, and we're starting turnover procedures, and at some point, obviously, it went from, hey, we're gonna do a, a massive kinetic sweep, to, alright, we're gonna continue this counterinsurgency, we're gonna start doing this in a less kinetic way than a Fallujah style.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it starts to become time for you guys to kind of pack up. Head home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You, uh, when, when you guys as a unit head back, how long does that redeployment take?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's crazy for me to think, now we, we've kinda changed our perspective now on how you decompress people, and even, like in the SEAL teams, when we came home from Ramadi, we got on a plane, we flew home, and we were home. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well to be quite frank, what we did was they sent us to, we went to a bar and we drank and we, and they had, they had guys to shuttle us home with our, one new guy would drive our car and the other new guy would drive, would,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not exactly what you would call a good plan for decompression and now they do a much better job. But I, it's, you know, one of the best things that you can do when you come home is you want to spend time with the people that you were there with, you want to tell stories, you want to get it out of your system, you want to laugh, you want to cry, you want to, you want to kind of like, like you said, decompress.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the soldiers coming home and then they're rolling back into a civilian job and all of a sudden they're not seeing their, their, their friends everyday, the people that they just served with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What did it look like from your position as the commander, as all that unfolded? What were the reports coming back? Were guys getting in trouble? Was it useful? And one thing that I tell military guys all the time, active duty guys, when they get out, whether they just get out or whether they retire, like you gotta find a new mission. Right? So I imagine some people,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey, it's time to go back to work. Okay, go back to work. They kind of get back into that mission, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For me, I always see guys that have the most trouble when they don't have they don't have a job to go into they don't have anything to do and now they kind of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The devil's, what is it, the, the idle hands are the devil's plaything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, what was your situation when you got home? Did you stay on active duty for a while? Did you go back to work?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that memorial march is up, it's open to the public, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I remember seeing that obelisk when I got there. You know, you guys were still on the ground. I think I got there right around the time it was dedicated. I mean, I forget the exact date. I'm gonna, I'm gonna actually try and figure that out. Because I should know that date. But, you know, you were telling me earlier,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I agreed, you know, you said, you asked me if I kept the journal in Ramadi, I said no, and you said you had neither, and both of us wished that we had, because, you know, you, you just, a little dates like that of,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so, you know, to see, to see that monument, to see those, those dog tags and, and know what each one of those represents was definitely a, uhm, very somber and very solemn moment and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're absolutely correct. Every time you talk about the people that you know, the people that you lost,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their spirit's still here. You know, that's one of the best things about the job that I do. You know, I go around and talk to companies and even right here, right now, this is what we're doing. You know, we got, we got friends, we got people that sacrificed


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You ended up going to 40 different countries when I was over in Europe in the last three years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So was that, did you, so you picked up, so you got home from Ramadi, what was your next, what happened then?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, one of my friends that was in the SEAL teams with me, his, uhm, he was, his dad was a, was a Mexican. Yeah. And, you know, and the kid looked Mexican, and, you know, I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, a little bit of an accent just from growing up with his dad who spoke, spoke Spanish and, and who to this guy's, you know, admission he said, you know, my dad didn't really speak, you know, didn't really speak English very well at all. And his mom spoke Spanish too. And I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's why you have a little bit of an accent. He said, yeah, you know, that's probably where it comes from. And I said, well, you know, at least, at least you speak Spanish.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he goes, no, I don't speak Spanish. His dad refused to have him speak Spanish because his dad wanted him to be an American.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Even though his dad wasn't, you know, great with English, he wouldn't speak to him in Spanish. And I thought that's where you were going to go, you know, because that was kind of the old, the old attitude was, hey, we're in America now. So, interesting story. You know, I, I, I did, you know, have this little thing that you, you put together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, sorry, yes, the 28th idea. Yeaah. When you were the division commander. Right. You had a, uhm, sort of a guidance for your troops and there's just a couple good leadership things in here. It says every leader is trusted and expected to use disciplined initiative within the commander's intent without wasting time requesting permission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Report up as the situation develops. Request further guidance or support as necessary.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Demonstrating a high level of initiative is worth the risk of making honest mistakes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was always my main goal, you know, that's the fourth, the fourth law of combat that I talk about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is decentralized command and, and it's the most powerful of the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Of the laws of combat that I talk about. Not that the other ones aren't powerful, but you can't have decentralized command unless you have cover move, unless you have, unless you keep things simple, unless you prioritize and execute. Those things don't really work. Decentralized command cannot work without those three, but once you implement decentralized command, this is what allows


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A team to really do well. Yes. Everybody leads. That's what you want.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Quick turnaround. You know, I, uhm, like I said, there's a ton of stuff, great stuff inside this book. Uhm, I want to read one more chunk of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty good chunk here. And, and the part, this is the part called leadership. And, and look, you've got these leadership lessons kinda strewn throughout, and you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You put an exclamation point on him here. You say this, character, competence, and resilience are essential for effective leadership. Leaders must be true to their values even when their backs are against the wall. Leaders must cultivate trust by trusting others first, sharing the load, and following through on promises. Leaders must care more about those they lead


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then they care about themselves. Leaders must clearly communicate a vision or action.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An action plan that is realistic and believable, be problem solvers and have the courage to make decisions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Leaders must help others develop and become stronger, and leaders must be fit in many ways, including physical, spiritually, mental, and emotional fitness. Leaders must have the resilience to overcome adversity. Resiliency is not only about toughness,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's also about exuding positive energy that inspires others.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Having a positive attitude is essential. We choose how we feel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We can choose to be happy or sad, angry or calm, upbeat or down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Organizations and teams take on the attitude and personality of their leaders.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The attitudes of those on the team reflect the leader's attitude. If your team has a bad attitude, look in the mirror.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that's an example of some of the, you know, just, just powerful leadership lessons that you have inside this book.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] General Gronski, where, let's talk about where people can find you, what you're doing right now. I know you've got your consulting company. Tell us a little bit about that and where we can find you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your YouTube is John Gronsky. Your LinkedIn is John Gronsky. Your Facebook is John Gronsky Leads. I didn't find your Instagram. You got an Instagram?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As Echo Charles likes to call it. Uh, that's where people can find you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're, you're available to speak, you're available to do consulting, the whole nine yards.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You got anything? So, so just so I know you listen, you said you listen to the podcast and I'm sure you know that Echo's been sitting here for three hours and something caught his mind two hours and 32 minutes ago and he's been having this question brewing. You noticed that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My recommendation is you stay humble when you're getting a turnover from somebody. Yeaah. Man, listen to what they say. They know things you don't know and it's actually crazy to me to think about trying to transfer knowledge like when the guys came in to relieve task unit bruiser inside Ramadi.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was trying to tell them, you know, we're all, everyone in the chain of commands just trying to give them all this information cause you know, you know how hard it is and you're just, just trying to give them


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no possible way you can transfer them all the knowledge that you have and you're doing your best. So when you come into those situations as a leader, open up your mind, open up your brain, try and absorb what people are telling you. They're, look, they, you might have a different vision. It doesn't matter. Listen to what they say. Have an open mind. Uhm, sir, got any other, any, any final thoughts?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And once again, thank you so much for coming here today. Thank you for teaching all these great lessons about leadership and life. And of course, and obviously thank you for everything you did for America for 40 years of service. And specifically thank you for what you did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that served with you in the battle of Armani.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You and your troops set conditions for victory and the men of the 228 will always be revered.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] By the Seals of Task Unit Bruiser for guiding us into combat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And with that, General John Gronsky has left the building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Awesome to see him again and awesome to talk to him and awesome to get those lessons learned. Now they must be applied.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Echo Charles, any lessons that you think we could apply, any things we could do to make ourselves better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let me go deep on this right now. Okay, so I was up on the, uh, the Joe Rogan podcast. I got a COVID-19 test.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The doctor came. A doctor came to give me the test. He gave me the test. He pricked my finger. We had to wait 15 minutes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, to find out if I've had this, if I developed this. He knew, you know, I was telling him, hey look, I went to Seattle, I went to New York, I went to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] San Francisco. I went to LA. I mean, I was in the hot zones. I was at ground zero for COVID at the end of January. On planes everywhere. And kept traveling. I stopped traveling March 14th, I think. I was traveling in airplanes all over the place. I did not have the antibodies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what he said was, with the amount of travel I've done and the amount of exposure I've had, I've been exposed to it. He said sometimes people's immune systems are strong to the point where it doesn't even register. This little COVID-19 rolls in and it just gets crushed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I take, Jocko Fuel D3. I take it. I take it every day. As a matter of fact, I take more than the recommended dose for whatever reason. I take one in the morning, I take one at night. I take Cold War.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I eat good, yes. Why not just kick it up? So, who knows?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, y-you heard what, uh, Rhonda- Dr. Rhonda Patrick said, right? On Joe's podcast, talking about vitamin D.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all of a sudden I'm in all these horrible places, and I'm just COVID free, no factor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So anyways, look, those are the facts. A lot of exposure, no COVID-19, no, and oh, by the way, we're doing jiu-jitsu. I mean, it's crazy what I expose my immune system to. No factor. What? COVID what? So, try those out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With everybody, different cities. Lines of people. Yeah. From all over the country. By the way, when I went to those cities, there was, you know, whatever percentage of the audience, they didn't, they weren't from DC, they weren't from New York, they drove there from wherever else. So you got this massive cesspool of bacteria, and I'm just all up in it. But I got that D. You got that D.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Plus you can get this stuff at originmain.com. You can also get it at the vitamin shop. Exactly right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like someone did something cool. And by the way, it's so obvious when you see those pre-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What are they? What do they call that? I don't know. No, there's a word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, order those. Get what you need, man. We're there. And we're making everything that we're talking about in America. That's what we're doing. That's how we're doing it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's if you want to represent while you're on the path. True. Very, very tragic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're making me want to sign up for your email list just so I can make sure, just so I can police you to make sure you're not sending out stuff that you shouldn't be sending out. No, I'm saying if I was a listener, because I am on the email list, but if I was just a listener out there in the world, I might go, Echo's making a claim. I'm gonna check him.