[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it started, and then like the second day and then that stuff started becoming really addicting. Like I wanted that like numb feeling and she was just like, you're not the same person. Like quick, like she recognized it. And, uh, we got off, like I was able to, I wasn't even on that stuff for like a full week.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it was so hard for me not to take it. Like she had to straight up, like, help me detox. Like I'm not saying detox in a bad way, like somebody who's like, but it was bad, you know? And she identified that right away and it was just like, Oh, I know. And it was just like, Nope, like we're flushing this. Like this is gone. Like we'll figure something else out. And she's always been the one to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, figure something else out and make, make sure we, you know, work as a team on it. So it's been awesome man. She's amazing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, I started my own company called Never Settle Consulting. You know, I did sales and financial company for a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A lot of good relationships. My sales team was awesome. Uh, but I wanted to do my own thing. Um, I wanted a little more fulfillment. It was taking time away from me being able to do what I wanted to do to be able to grow and, you know, spend more time with my family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, cause I had a second chance. You know, I had a second chance with Amanda and with my kids and I wanted to do something that fulfilled me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, so it's, it's been good. You know, it has ups and downs. You know, I've worked with a couple of clients that I thought was going to be a long-term thing and it didn't, but hey, it's business. You're out on your own. You learn your lessons and you just keep moving forward.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For the most part legitimately did not settle with average or, you know, a mediocre lifestyle. Like it just didn't happen. You know, you're always constantly driving and pushing each other to be better, to be stronger, to be faster, to be smarter. You know, I remember multiple times like you would come in and be like, Hey,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. So I go in and I'd print off the articles and I'd read them and highlight them and chocolate later on. He's like, Hey, did you hear about this? I'm like, yeah, actually, blah, blah, blah. Boom. Yeah. And so, you know, I just miss being around that, you know, and that's not in the, for the most part, you don't find that in civilian.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, in business, you don't. And I really wanted to be able to have an impact, like I want to work with veterans that have issues that are going through problems. I want to give back to law enforcement, you know, because they have a hard job, man, and they're underfunded, they're undertrained.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I just, I wanted to give back, you know, and I enjoy that. I like doing that stuff and it gives me freedom to be able to choose, you know, to help out with different projects and help people. And you know, a man has been super supportive and you know, the, the other logo of never settles win the fight no matter what you just win the fight and it's not a physical thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's life is a fight. We all go through our fights. We just have to establish what we want. Like you talk about the commander's intent. Like if you don't have your own commander's intent for you and your family, you're screwed. You're going to wander around and you're just going to waste your life away. And so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just, you know, and then underneath it, it's in Latin, you know, sign met to is, which means without fear, you know, fear is the opposite of faith. Like you read about Mikey, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, fear, fear is no match for my faith and I believe that and I want others to believe that. And I don't think a lot of people out there believe that. And if we can paint that message and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would love, you know, for my company to be more of like a lifestyle, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And dude, some dude went and got my logo tattooed on his calf.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause he's like, I want it to be a reminder. And he incorporated his kid's names into the tattoo. He's like, dude, it's a daily reminder for me not to settle for average and just get after it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm doing something right, hopefully, you know, and so that man is super supportive of it, you know, and she's just doing everything to help me out with it. And you know, she has her business and she still takes the time to help me grow mine. So it's awesome, man, just helping people figure out what they want in life. Like, cause I don't think a lot of people will take the time to establish that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, you know, I think if we can help that, and if we can...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've always been like that. Uhm, you know, my parents taught us just enjoy what you have, you know, it doesn't have to be material stuff. Just enjoy the life that you have. And I've also always realized that people have it a lot worse. And then after two deployments, you know, cause I met you after my second deployment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Actual oppression, not what some of these idiots are talking about right now, you know? I've seen, you know, kids with...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, uhm, just the pituitary gland, uhm, the sacrum of my pituitary gland was damaged and destroyed pretty bad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, from, from that blast and just multiple other like explosions and blasts overseas. I mean, we use breaching charges to open up doors. You know, where you're in a gunfight and the machine gun is legitimately going off right next to your head. That's providing like cushion that there's times after gunfights, like I felt like I was just drunk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I felt like I was drunk just cause I was just out of it. And so just that much and then just combat sports and other stuff like that. And so, um, you know, when Amanda finally got me to go to the VA to get my, my levels tested, you know, normal male were supposed to be between 600 and 900. Uh, I was 81.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that was bad. And they were just like, how, like they called, I didn't answer my phone because I was at work and I was on the online or something like that. And they called Amanda like he needs to come back in right away. So of course they freak my wife out, right? She thinks I'm dying or something like that. Like, and then, so I go and I get it retested again. It was 87.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they're like, are you on steroids right now? I'm like, look at me. Don't look like I'm on steroids. Now granted, like when I was younger, you know, I'd taken some real strong supplements from like max muscle and different places like that, that had them available and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm sure that might have had an effect, but you know, I don't know. You know what I mean? I mean, I know, you know, I like, I try to like, get, you know, own up to some of the mistakes, you know, cause Jocker used to joke, he's like, JP just wants to be 205 pounds walking around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, well I have a family I have to provide for. I really don't have another option, so just gotta get out there and get after it. We call that BTF. Just BTFing throughout the day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I've been, uh, I was actually going through some videos and I'll try to get you guys some of these the other day where I'm laying down on the sniper rifle and we're in a big firefight and they come and straddle over me to start firing off rockets and I'm getting that blast coming down just


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my goodness, I'm gonna need coloring crayons for Christmas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, it is. Just shooting it. Yeah. Well, I mean, considering we mount those to the tops of Hummers, and if you don't have your foot on the brake and it's in park, it'll move the vehicle. And even that, and you see a vehicle going like just moving, like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, you know, I was also a lead driver. So there's times where the machi- like 50 cal is right over us in the front, like the barrel's like sticking out and you're getting that blast and you're like-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just so much respect, you know, the guys that are still on the teams, you know, I just did under 12 years in the Navy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I didn't do it my full time. You look at these guys, they do 20, 22, 25 years. Like I'm just like, dude, hats off to those guys, you know, and like the guys that are still the same guys that I deployed with, you know, it's weird me talking about it. Like I did anything special.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As a team, we did something special. Yeaah. And those guys are still in the fight. You know, they're still deploying, they're still doing work ups, you know, they're battling divorces, they're, you know, dealing with new babies being born and, you know, taking care of their wives and, you know, family and it's just like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just so much respect to those guys. And uh, and you look at all the other branches that we served with and when those guys just.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, with limited resources, limited support.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was even, I'm not a morning person like you. Like I'm usually a guy that's up until two or three working on stuff. So I was like, ah, I gotta get up. I was like, dude, I'm here with Jocko Leif and Echo, I've gotta get after it. I was like, I'm gonna be pissed that there's like five people out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Those videos were awesome. Like very captivating. You know, me sitting there in the crowd. Yeaah. It was just like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had to get up the first day I sat in the back and I had to get up and I'd pace because I was just like so connected. It just brought me back, you know, or just emotional connection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, everyone else did the same thing. The second day I'm sitting up in the front row and I was like, I can't stand up in pace right now. But just everyone, you just watch other people and just do a great job. Those videos were insane, man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know. I had the, uh, I had the doctor's mask on so nobody recognized me. Yeah, on the DL. That's right, that's right. If somebody asked me about it, they're like, uhm, pretty blonde and the guy holding twins, babies. I'm like, yeah, that's right. That's right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where you at on Twitter, JP or at JP to know, uh, Instagram would be never settle consulting and Facebook page, never settle consulting LLC. So if you liked the page, uh, able to put out any upcoming events or anything that's going on, just try to connect with people through social media.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, we've kept in touch, you know, online it's always cool, but then, yeah, really good to see you again. Oh, if you go to never settle consulting.com, that'll be up in the near future as well. But you can contact me through the social media, uh, but the website will be up and running soon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, but yea, it's great seeing you again bro. Like coming out here, I was like, you know, just, you know, I got the call from Jaco and I, um, you know, turned down a couple of different gigs or, you know, switched some work around. I was like, do I gotta get out of here? Like, you know, and Amanda was like, yeah,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, don't be an idiot. You're going. Yeaah, you're going to find a way. And uh, it was awesome. You were able to work it out and be on the podcast. You know, I just appreciate you guys having me out here man. Of course man. It was awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, uhm, obviously I just want to thank, uhm, all the troops overseas, uh, all the troops that are home, uh, the family members of the troops that never made it back. We appreciate you guys, uh, all the law enforcement officers out there, firefighters, medics, you guys are getting after it, serving your community every day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And of course, I want to thank Amanda, um, just for her continued support and love and, uh, my kids, you know, love those kids. Um, look forward to the day where they're old enough where they can actually listen and process this. So Aiden, Cora and all, I love you guys. And, um, yeah, it's awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kind of forgot about that there and that was, that was good. And the guy we're talking about read it pretty good too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I didn't have like a big ceremony or nothing. I just went out to nylon and we got all gummed up and that was about it. But, uh, I do, I appreciate it, man. Yeaah. It's good to see you, brother.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's funny, uh, a few years back, like, uh, we're all in...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Arizona. I took a bunch of the guys in a platoon over to my parents' house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we had supper and everything and it was wicked fun. Jeremy pulls me aside. He's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You actually have parents? I thought you were born under a rock somewhere in the desert. You're like, shut up, you know? That is pretty funny. Nah, I'm, I'm from New Hampshire and, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, let's just, probably like you, just yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not so much wanting to be a CEO, I just want to be something different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I could have went like a biker gang or something just as easy, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I figured this, I have a pretty good chance of staying out of the clink, you know, this way, but not always, but a few times, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The team's just suited me because everybody's the same. Everybody, you know, everywhere you look, guys are doing what you would do and they act how you would act and it's not always great, but you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wanted to be a CEO, but I wasn't like a thousand percent, you know? And I was in the Philippines, and I was like, alright, I gotta do that. That's it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I went and got a screening test over there in Subic Bay and you know, I smoked it and then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know they didn't have this long pipeline back then. I got there on a Friday.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it's just, you know, it's, it's, the teams, like, between us we got, like, 46 years of team guy life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's so hard to put in perspective if you don't know what you're talking. You know, you've never been there. People don't know that we don't call each other SEALS. You never say that. Nobody says, when I joined Navy SEALS, it's like when I became a team guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hit him so hard, gave his driver's license a black eye, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, you don't say anything. Well, we all thought we were going to Vietnam the next day, you know. You know, you say, oh my god, uuuh. And after a while, you're like, alright, what's happening here? What's going on?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's good people out on the country, don't get me wrong, but New England has a-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pretty strong work ethic, you know what I mean? And I've seen that a lot, a lot. And not that other people don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But all the guys, most of the guys I knew from New England and the teams had a pretty good work ethic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like the first day of Buds, I'm looking around, some of these guys, and I'm like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It doesn't matter. Yeah, that's why, you know, you know that the government wants more and more teen guys. It just ain't gonna happen. No. It's not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not unless you lower the standards and if that happens then we've all not done our job. That's just terrible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can read and watch people pretty good and I watch some guys who kinda brought me up in the teams. Some of the guys we were talking about earlier.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I tried to kinda mimic them, but then it kinda morphs into your own shit, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, like get over there boss and do your job. But I mean, some of them guys in that, that platoon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were already my chums, like Chris Kyle and Bob and Jeremy and them guys have been around a while and they're already.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I put them through training in land warfare on an island. So they're, they're, they know me. You know, and up to that point, it's been, I was doing a lot of that shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm like, no boss, you do it. Cause basically he's new to them. Not new in the teams, but he was new. And I figured he's got to do this more and more and more.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and, and he did, of course, you know, they've stepped up like a, like a, you know, gangbusters and was a great officer. But in the beginning stages, like, all right, I've already done this a million times. I don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't care, I'm good. You know, you want my advice? Great, but come on, let's just get the ball rolling. Nice. Do it. And so if that answers the question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's not like it was doing it to make rank. I didn't expect to make E5, nevermind Senior Chief.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I would have loved to be on every operation, but I physically couldn't because we had multiple ops going on. We had to split forces. So what are you going to do? I got no problems with anyone in that group, the lowest guy running an op. But you gotta, you gotta let your, you gotta let the boys basically screw up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, do they just sit there and pout? Then you gotta slap them or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or do they, okay, here's what you did wrong. Roger that. And then immediately start thinking how to fix it. Cause everybody fucks up everything. Let's face it. I mean, we're never always good at anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Still ain't really good at much. There's BTF through it all and so it doesn't seem like we made mistakes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean really, but leadership is funny because some guys take to it like water and other guys are scared to death of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That makes total sense though. If someone out there is a leader, been in a leadership position, you know exactly what you're talking about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No really, what's the problem? Okay, like you said, good, good. Alright, now you've identified it, go work it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and you got five minutes. Go take care of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, like you said early on in that work up, you know, leadership at every level.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, even the junior guy, it's his responsibility to keep me in check if something's going wrong. Because if I'm doing something stupid, he's like, hey Tony, what, what, oh, yeah, okay, I lost it there for a while.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's, it's a lot easier if you start right from the beginning, trying to make everybody understand decentralized command. Cause that's the goal. It has to be the goal because someone like you, you can't, you gotta be somewhere else. You know, we.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We didn't want you on the battlefield with us. I wanted you on the battlefield with me. Every time you were, I was like, oh this is awesome.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I mean, I really, really needed you back where you were. Of course. You know, and that, everybody had a...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they talk about decentralized command. It's important because.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're just doing the same like army training and an army unit goes over there, what are they going to do? Go. All right guys, now we're doing decentralized command later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you, you know, until that happens, you know, you gotta, now they come back, hey, we need to train like this. Yep. Here's what our junior officers need to do. Here's what our NCOs need to do. Here's our E5s, our E4s, you know, our privates. Here's what they need to do. Yep. Good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we didn't, we had none of that, everything went perfect.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're doing unilateral ops, then it's kind of a no-brainer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you go over there and all of a sudden, you know, all you, you're working by yourself, boom, boom, doing your mission's great. But.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're working split forces and you're training indigenous forces and you're doing that, you have to have these, you know, you have to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's not always easy to adjust for because it's like, there's a world of difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. Like a world of difference. I mean, it's all kind of the same.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But stuff I did in Iraq, I didn't do in Afghanistan, you know, and vice versa. Like, whoa, can't do that. You know, and even, even stuff like the weather, you know, all of a sudden it's snowing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and then the terrain. Like, people think Iraq's all desert. I mean, there were some places where they were like in the jungle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like we're in Nam, you know, or Cambodia, for Christ sakes. And we're like, well, you know, okay, we're going to walk how many clicks? Yeah. Well, when you're up to waste and mud, you know, all of a sudden that timeframe is totally off because we didn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I made a mistake. I didn't really, really read the terrain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and ask about it and see who's been up there before and shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we just adapt and overcome. Exactly, I think that's the biggest thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That kind of questions pretty easy for me. Like how the battlefield made me feel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All I can say is it made me feel much better than any other place than the battlefield. You know what I mean? Because everything makes sense on the battlefield. We're either going forward or we're going away or defending our position or we're moving out. Out of that, what else is there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All them things, even if you have men down and people wounded, you still gotta do them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm serious, like when I was in Afghanistan, I flew into, uh, Kandahar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And these guys are like, oh, you just missed- I can't remember what concert- they go to concerts and stuff, I'm eating rat shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stuff up in the mountains, you know, I'm like, really? What are all these people doing here? Why aren't you all murdering the bad guys?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you gotta admit though, uh, you know, time off is not such a good thing. I mean, a couple days break now and then, but you gotta keep the boys busy. Then they start thinking, then they start getting, you know. But I mostly did it for me because I just wanted to get after.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But when the shit hits the fan, you know, it's, it's strange cause it makes me, like, a little calmer, I think.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean not always, I had the first, first time I ever got shot. I was a little jittery a little bit, but. Well. Oh my god, what's going on? I knew what it was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, right. No, that's it, just like sitting in camp watching TV. That doesn't matter. No. Okay, you got your rest, you good? You know? Alright, you know, let's go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seriously, like a million. Like a million. I mean, that story about you and your roommate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're, uh, you're like, you guys live together in Coronado? Yea. You know I'm talking about, the big fella? Yea. You're like, I was over there pattying one night, we're getting gooned up. And you're like, you know what our bill was from Domino's? It was like $2,500 last month. Yea, in a month.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I thought that was so funny. Had some wicked good potties though. Yeah, yeah, we did have some pretty good potties. And then one time we're out at an island, so it's like two o'clock in the morning.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the guys are, you know, they're, uh, what do you, what do you call that? After you're done, do the work on the vehicles, uh, post, you know, post-stop the vehicles and they're all busy doing stuff. And I mean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd help out if I had to, but I mean, that's not my job. So, and they boys know what to do. Jeremy had him. Great LPO. And, uh, we're sitting there, me and Leif and maybe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One of the other JOs were shooting the shit about something. I mean, I had to do a work, cause what else is there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Leif was talking and it was quiet kinda and you got your arm on one of the humvees and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All of a sudden you're just out of nowhere, you're just kicked to dirt and you go, God damn it! And you're like shaking your head and clenching your fist and like, the fuck you talking about?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he just like, looked at me and smiled and walked away like, what? What? What is wrong with you? Still haven't figured out what's wrong with you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, we were there a couple weeks in Ramadi and we were just falling into a groove operating and one night I was in his office cause like, couldn't sleep or whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, he's like, look at this. And you show me, he shows me the computer. He goes, this is from my wife.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't have anything going on back here, it didn't matter to me at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I had a lot of guys work under me over the years and, and I mean, I really think that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, all my brothers in the teams, every one of them is good to go. Even the guys I didn't get along with. I'd still give my wife form in a second. Doesn't matter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uh, one thing that sticks out to me was Biggles. Everybody knows Ryan Job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I, I don't, I guess I could have been more like, nice or whatever. But I'm like, man, you look like you're fucking fat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You better get in fucking shape or I'm gonna fucking kill you. I'm not gonna like write you up. I don't even know how to do that. I'm gonna just physically kill you. And man.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I didn't even know if he was in good shape or not, cause some people you can't tell. Yeaah. And they're like, look at that guy, and then he just knocks shit out.


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[Assistant] And man, that kid did. I mean, he really, really did. And like, all of a sudden, I'm like, chum. Well, I didn't say that. I was like, hmm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I, you know, that was like, you know, that was like my praise, like, you know. Yeah, whatever you could. High praise from Tony. Okay, on to the next one, on to the next thing. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, that was really good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I remember one of my guys, uh, lost a piece of equipment one time and, you know, I was kind of upset with him, but it just made me realize that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, if we're making a mistake, maybe it's not this guy's fault. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe it's everyone's fault as a team. Because at the end of the day, it's all of us. So maybe we ought to take a day or two off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and that kinda helped. You know, we handled it, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, and another one of my guys, he, uh, it was Christmas and he left, left a piece of equipment open or didn't lock something. I mean, it wasn't a big deal. I could have corrected it right there, but the guys had just taken off on Christmas leave.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was, didn't know where to go, so I was drinking beers in the team area. I just walked around, checking shit out, and sure enough. So I called the guy, and he was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three or four hundred miles into his drive to a western state for Christmas. I'm like, he goes, oh, I'm sorry. I'm like, yeah, no problem, man. Alright, so turn around now and I'll be waiting for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's dead silence on the phone. He's like, what? Yeah. Yeah.


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[Assistant] So he drove all the way back, and I was standing there, it's like 4 in the morning now, and I was like, I was pretty wickered up by then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just fuming, but he's like, hey, I'm sorry. You want a lesson? Yep. Okay. Have a good week. And I'm sure I'm positive he never did that again.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That'll do it, you know. Yeah, it was kind of a dink move, I guess, but, you know, I figured it was the same zoo.


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[Assistant] That's like, that's when you train decentralized command. That's where you gotta let guys make mistakes and screw things up. Cause, you know, the less you, the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed more. No doubt about that one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, there was one big one that I really disagreed with you guys on when...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My, uh, my request to keep the entire troop there for another year. You said you couldn't and I was like why not?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, we can't, and I'm like, why? And I was really really really angry about that, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, if guys in the teams, you gotta know this, but a lot of people out there don't that like pretty much everyone's an alpha male. You know, they don't, it's like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nobody gives up the argument ever, you know, and usually it's, you know, wrestling or fighting and it always works itself out, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think, uh, one thing I, we were talking about is gimmicks. Like a lot of people in the teams, I call it a gimmick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everybody's good at everything, pretty much, and does the job.


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[Assistant] But some people are like just insane skydivers. Some guys are just phenomenal rock climbers. Some guys are just like swimming sons of guns, you know, or runners and wrestlers and fist fighters and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's eh, you know, some people are just into guns. I mean, that's their passion. Some people are just phenomenal divers, you know, and I was, I was always pretty good at everything, but not great.


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[Assistant] You know, I couldn't outrun everybody, I couldn't outfight everybody, I couldn't out swim everybody, I couldn't out shoot everybody. And I just...


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[Assistant] I think mine was like tactics and just being as hard as I could. And it, it, I, I may have made it look easy, but it wasn't, especially as I got older. It's no fun being a teen guy when you're 44, you know, and you get up and you're like, ah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, yeaah, okay. Then I'm like, I better retire. I'm done with all this. But yeaah, if that, if that kinda makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wow. Did, did, did you work? You know, did you? And if they can't figure something out, they'll be like, whatever, fuck that guy. They'll just walk away. Hey, where you going? Yeah, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I read a bunch of after action reports.


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[Assistant] You know, and my tour is over there about different situations, different things and every time they were well written by some guys, but it was.


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[Assistant] You'll always carry this. You will always do this. Never do this. Always do that. And I kind of took that in account when I wrote like a serious after action report for that deployment. I wish you would have saved it too, because it's pretty good. First and foremost, this is what worked for us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In these months, this environment, this temperature with this mission set and what we had to do. Don't use this as, oh he said that so I'm going to do it every time.


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[Assistant] No, I mean, use it as a guide. Everything that teams is a toolbox.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You pick it out when you need it and you use it and you put it back away. And if it sits in there for 500 years, it's still worth having because the time you pull it out, you're going to really need it. Yup. Yup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, it's, it's really, it's wicked brutal like, you know, every, it's like a small town. Everybody knows everything, even though you're on other coasts. I mean, I've done a lot of stupid shit in my career and I was a jerk off and dumb stuff and been an idiot and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some of them can't operate anymore. It's not like we throw them to the wolves. They want to stay in the teams. We keep them and take care of them. And some become phenomenal instructors and just go on and do great things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They got blinders on, they can't open the, you know, and you got to, if you want to evolve at all, stay alive, you know.


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[Assistant] Well for me what makes a great NCO or chief is...


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[Assistant] I don't think you can just do it. I think it's, uh...


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[Assistant] I'm not saying I'm a great NCO, but I did have great NCOs who taught me a lot and they brought me up and they put their foot square in my rectum when I needed it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they also took their time to explain things to me.


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[Assistant] They're like, no dummy, relax. Here's how you do it. And that leadership style went a long way with me and uh, I never forgot it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, who's the best NCO you've had or ever known? Man, there's so many guys that it's not one and I can't say their names because, you know, it's not cleared. I mean, but that's a good thing about nicknames sometimes, you know, I think, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll have to say overall, uh, Mr. Fack was probably the best one I ever had.


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[Assistant] He was just an old school, hot ass son of a bitch. But, he was fair as all hell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was fair and you always knew where you stood with him. And I love that. That's what I tried to do later on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't want to go, hide, hide, hide, and then totally take another direction and just be like easy on the guys so they'd like me, you know, I don't care.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I thought that was much easier in a better way. Cause mission man is how you should look at things. Put the mission first and take care of your man. But sometimes if you have to sacrifice men and you got to like, okay, you got to die for this mission. All right, Roger that. I mean, that's the way the military is. That's what you get paid for.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But yea, Mr. Fac was probably the best one for me.


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[Assistant] It's like when we're bounding back one time somewhere in Iraq and we're just, we didn't even have to say anything to each other. We're just like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cover and move. Go, go, go. But one thing real quick about an NCO, one of the best I ever had, another sea daddy of mine, and I can say his name cause rest in peace, Tim Farrell. Tim Farrell was a big, big influence on my life. I mean, he was, he was a wicked good operator.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't, I don't know anybody who's a tougher guy in the teams. He's just a hard hitting guy and just, he's a really good dude, man. Really good guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you know, it's a double, it's a flip of the coin on depends on the situation, but I can tell you the number of times I fired a rifle and assault rifle, like an M4, M14 and all that, you know, a scar on full auto is big friggin goose egg.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I, I can't think of one situation or if somebody said, okay, Tony, you're going in this room alone and there's eight guys pointing guns at you. Well, okay. Roger that. But, you know, but sometimes, you know, volume of fire gets your heads down. If you're in the street.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You gotta get that fire, you gotta try to gain fire superiority.


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[Assistant] And if you don't have that, you ain't really moving. And, uh, so at that point, you know, you're not doing all the things you were taught and breathing. You're just getting led down in that direction to cover your, your ass, well, your buddy's ass. So you can move and they can move. Um.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But accuracy of fire in combat, you know, in good situations, if you're under fire and you're putting lead down range so you can move.


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[Assistant] It's real nice to have a supporting element in an elevated position. They're the ones combining these two.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a pretty good example. It's pretty nice knowing about four blocks from you. You got Chris Kyle up there talking to you on the radio. HELL NO! You see a guy fall out of like the window with a gun, you're like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thanks, brother. You know, you're pretty confident walking down the street at that point, so. Yeah. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yup. And then at night it don't matter cause you're using an appeal or a laser and you're on nods anyway, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Me and my brother just had this conversation and, uh, you know, he's like, well, I wish I could, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Concealed weapon care, you know, it's got, say I got my revolver and he's got like a 686 stainless P or plus, you know, seven shot, 357. I wonder where he...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He wanted a revolver, I told him once again. Yea, that's a good one. He loves it. But he's like, you know, should I, when I'm concealed carry, should I carry some speed loaders? I'm like, well, Chum, is that always convenient? No. Well, you know what? You're not getting in a gunfight. You're not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you get into somebody shooting, you either shoot them or you put down fire and you run. It's not your fight. If someone's jacking your car or whatever and they pull a gun, you shoot them. Yes. But you know, it's a nightclub shooting or something. You, you, you blasting your way out of there and that's it. You're not going to sit there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't have unlimited ammo. Right. And even in the teams we didn't. That was my biggest fear. I would hate to die of lack of shooting back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey Alan, we never really did run out. We got low.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We got low a few times, but never really run out. That's scary. That's why we kind of train on, uh, you know, we did a lot of that where try to set a standard. You can't, you know, if you got to shoot, you shoot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] M4 gunners, you know, after 4 mags, you gotta start slowing it down. Start thinking about round conservation. Same thing with the machine gunners. Start slowing your rates of fire down. Initial bursts, initial volleys, and then go down to like, you know, shorter bursts. More time looking at what you're seeing, cause if you're out there hanging with your ass hanging, you know, and you got no rounds, then guess what? It's run time. And nobody wants to run.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well that first part, that first part is pretty easy cause I remember you and Leif were talking, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We didn't know who this choco guy was. I kind of was walking by the office. It's like a movie where I stopped like halfway through a step. And I backed up and I went, what'd you guys say? Yeah, this new, uh, tasking commander. We don't know who he is. What's his name?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you're like, uh, willing, jocco, jocco, jocco or something like that. I'm like, yeah, we're all set.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they're all like, you know, cause they're the two lieutenants, you know, Seth and, Seth and Leif. And they're like following me into the head, I'm like, relax. I'm like, what about, what about this car, what about this bike?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're good to go. I mean, we're sure we're getting him. Like, oh yeah, it's done. He's he's coming. He'll be like tomorrow. I'm like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. All right. Let me just tell you something. Be squared away tomorrow when I start walking away. You know this guy? And I was like, you know, is he, is he good to go? And I just looked at, I went.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and you better be on your game. Me, I'm gonna be hungover tomorrow, so whatever. I've known him forever. But that and uh, what would you like to work for?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is not even a question. He was great. He was the best ever. I mean, just, I don't know, we think, we think the same. We, we're, we're like-minded and, uh, we like, we like to work. We really, really loved our jobs and our men and our people, you know? And I hate saying I love my men. That sounds kind of whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I, you know, I did, I really cared about the guys and that was the best part of being a team guy and I'm sure Jocko will back me up on that. Absolutely. As your brothers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, it was kind of a different time. When we were new guys, like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wait, my first platoon we were involved, you know, like the first Gulf War, and I thought it was, wow, that was great, you know, and we really didn't do much and my platoon didn't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you know, some of them guys over there for six months and the war started and it was like a month or whatever and then it was done. Like, yeah. But other than that, we, we, I think in the later stages of my career, we didn't train as hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the deployment, I mean, we're still trained hard, but the deployments were harder, like more work and.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A training deployment because there was no war going on. We still had to deploy. People don't realize if there's no wars, team guys are still deploying the same op tempo.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because we need to constantly be around the world in case something happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But we did a lot of like hard core shit, like we did a lot more reconnaissance work, which meant we didn't have vehicles. So we had LPCs, which are leather personnel carriers, meaning boots.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we'd hump in like 25 clicks or whatever and we'd do these ridiculous swims and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's long dives and do all, I mean, really like long, like the harder the better. I mean, you look at a team, to put it in perspective, you look at a team guy back then, a lot of them were a lot leaner.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and they, we did a lot more running and swimming. You look in a, like a team area now, you go to the gym and it looks like WW, you know, MMA wrestlers. You know, I mean they do. Everybody's like, like stronger and not, cause you gotta carry more shit. We do, do a lot more direct action stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But also, we did a lot of drinking and partying and smiling. San Diego we did, I know that. And, uh, we hung a lot together. Nobody was married.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I don't, we had like 16 guys in my platoon and one was married and he was the LPO. Yea, like no one was married. No, we all hung out together all the time and we all like lived in Imperial Beach. We're like Chula Vista. Now people live like 40 miles away and like everyone's married and owns a house. Nobody owned a house. We didn't have any money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh my god, everything, everything is. There's so many good examples. There's so many good ones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's hard to say just one guy, you know, but, uh,


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[Assistant] I don't know, I'm, one time when me and, uh, dauber did that like thousand yard center peel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was pretty hard to contain that it didn't bother me. That was hard, man. I mean, that was, that was pretty hard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, this is a tactic with two guys. There's two of us bringing up the rear of this, this extraction, you know, actually, yeah, it wasn't extraction because it was by foot. Otherwise it would have been an exfiltration, but.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We kind of took up the rear, we started like covering, moving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And them guys were just on a dead run, but we had to stop, go, stop, go for about like a mile or whatever. It was just terrible. I mean, I was sweating like a Teamster man. I mean, I was just, man, cause it was like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 8 o'clock in the morning, ugh. And it's like 110 degrees out. That was, that was pretty good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was a pretty good one. But I remember getting back to the old days with that. We didn't save ETF back then. But we used to do some horrendous humps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, humping to the civilian world means like marching, not marching, but patrolling. And be like, do you look at the map? And we don't, we, we didn't patrol in the day. So it'd be like, all right, it gets dark at like 1900. I want to move out about 1930.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it gets, I'm gonna stop at about zero five. And we gotta cover, I don't know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 40 clicks. Alright, let's go. And your 100 pound rucksack, you're like, really? Okay, let's go. And you think, oh, I couldn't have been a plumber or something. Oh no, I'd be a team guy. I couldn't have been like went to college. No, no, no.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, nobody said, oh really? No, just do it, you know. Yeah, my whole, that platoon that I had on that deployment, I mean, them guys BTF'd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, especially like the sisters kids, those guys were, you know, we had the new guys, we had the older guys and then we had the middle guys, you know, and you know, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Spaz and uh, Squirrel and Chucky, those guys, Rex, those guys are badass man. For sure. I mean, they just, they didn't...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were the meat kind of of the platoon and they were the ones that like had to do it like most of the work. You know, the new guys helped them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the other older guys were more leadership positions. Yea. And they still work too, but these guys worked and they just like got rid of that and just got after it. Good dudes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guarantee all them guys, and I couldn't keep up with everyone after I retired, I guarantee all them guys are doing well in their careers, cause they're fantastic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First of all, you gotta figure out which, what we're talking about. My experience in the savages that we slayed and killed and shot, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] First of all, it's better to shoot someone in the back, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you know, an ambush where you can catch him walking away from you is always the best. But front, you just BTF and figure it out. Ah, we're talking about Sung Tzu there, you know, the outer ward, you know,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I thought, you know, he says, if you know yourself and your enemy, you don't, not, not, don't need to fear thousand battles or whatever. Well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know myself pretty damn good, and I know my group pretty damn good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't have time to read all that stuff and figure it out, so I figured I'd just hate the enemy. I'll just hate him and that hate will...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fuel my passion to make the operation as best I can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And work at the best I can and learn from the mistakes that didn't, that didn't work out. But that's, that kinda, when you, when you got that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It kind of pyramids down and everything kind of works itself out. You know, and you can't be afraid to try something different because, and you can't be afraid to bounce it off people. That's what's great about Jaco. I would, I would bounce something off of him, you know, and he'd be like, yep, that's good. Or he'd go, no, no, wait a minute. Cause he wouldn't let it go. You know, he'd be like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you walk me through this again? Roger, we're gonna do that, that, that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would also really, when I'd let other people run operations or I would work with other groups.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, go- Now what are we gonna do here? Well, you know, we're just gonna do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, I don't know what that means. Please explain it to me. Well, and they hadn't really thought about it. And that's the little glitch in the mission plan that's gonna get you killed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But you can't, you know, you can't take a lot of time to plan it up sometimes. Sometimes it's like, alright, you know what?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] An assault. Here we're gonna go. We're gonna go in strong like cowboys. Or we're gonna go on the prowl. We're gonna go in a surreptitious entry. Be real stealthy. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes it calls for a straight up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Punch em up, you know, just mix it up and BTF.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, and that's easy to do because you don't get to plan much. Okay, let's just go over there and kill everybody. Show us where they go and we'll go. Yep. Yep. So I don't know if that answers that question, but. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, of course not, cause you can't, you can't cover everything. I mean at that point I had three years as an instructor in land warfare and it was my eighth, ninth deployment. So I had been, you know, eight platoons or whatever and there's not much more I was gonna


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, learn from another six months of training. I mean, it's pretty much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, there's no real thing I was going, wow, I've never done this before, you know, like, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I get asked this a lot and uh, tell you the truth, it's got nothing to do with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the bombs and the wars and the killing and stuff, it's like, I never ever


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Bad at an eye, skydiving or static climbing, jumping into the water, jumping at night. Never bothered me one bit. You know, not at all. Never even was scared at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I don't like getting on the roof, you know what I mean? Like I hate being a 40 foot ladder and a man lift. You know, I work for a landscaping company and sometimes we're up in the man lift. It's like, man, this is kind of sucks. And I'll admit it, I'm a little bit afraid of heights at that level.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Repelling off a building one morning in Hong Kong in like a 60 story building.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we're repelling off and then going through a window and you gotta training, you gotta shoot these targets and stuff. And I mean, it's pretty cool, but I didn't like it at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this morning it was windy and the building's actually moving and I looked down, I'm going on a rappel, you know, I'm edging over the side. I'm on the top of this building and the people look like raisins, you know, down there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I mean, needless to say, I mean, I gotta go to the bathroom and I'm hungover. And I was like, oh my god. But.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'd rather die than be called a pussy. I'm going to do it. No, but I'd rather die than be a puss. So that was pretty much the, I'll never forget that day. It was terrible. The most fearful moment or the most difficult thing you ever did is a seal. Retire without a doubt, a hundred percent retire. And I'll leave it at that. Yeah, I hear you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I'll get to my favorite piece of gear kit. But, uh, evolution of gear?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Gotta be. You know, there's a couple of things. Like I say, boots. The boot thing is phenomenal. We got such good gear and boots now. Also, you gotta look at navigation. You know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember the first GPS's, we used to call them giant pieces of shit, because they were like the size of an ammo crate. Yea, they were huge. They were huge, and they looked like a telephone from the Korean War, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, but nowadays they're just badass, you know, and it would global positioning systems. I mean, and also communications. I mean, your satellite communication is absolutely fantastic. And everybody who was in the military out there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And we had all the old kicks and Diana pads and if you remember that HF, high frequency, and we did a lot of HF.


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[Assistant] But my favorite piece of kit I would have to say is anything that...


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[Assistant] You get in, drive. Cause back in the day, we didn't, we didn't use any mobility really. Everything was on foot and it's like, holy shit. That and the, uh, the 300 wind mag.


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[Assistant] Sniper rifle suppressed with a 22 power night force scope on it is a wicked good piece of kit. Let me tell you what. I mean I can read your t-shirt at a click. That's pretty good.


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[Assistant] Well, I think, keep it in your mind, mission men. Mission men. Look guys, you're not paid to sit here. Here's what we gotta do. Let's go do it.


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[Assistant] Yes, uh, it sucks sometimes. It's bad, but mission man, if you keep thinking that, that's what we're paid to do. The bottom line is you follow the orders of the guy above you and we're team guys. So that line bleeds a lot. It has a lot of waves in it, you know?


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[Assistant] Because he'll be like, hey Tony, what do you think we ought to do? I don't know, Jocko, let's do this. Alright, sounds good. But at any given time, if he goes, hey Tony, this is what we're doing. Roger that. And that's it. Even if it means dying. Because if you lead by example and you're humble,


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[Assistant] And you're good to your guys and you know your guys and you let them know you, but you don't wipe their ass and you don't take any shit from them. When they know you, they'll follow you. You know, if you're humble and you make mistakes, admit it and move on. And I think that's, uh,


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[Assistant] I know a few of my guys, probably most of them would follow me wherever we went. You know, and uh,


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[Assistant] I guess that's just cause I never change. They always knew what they're going to get from me. That's about it. Steady.


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[Assistant] Was I prepared to die? Yes, in a second. Let's get that over with right away. Uh, I really didn't have an attitude of death except for, you know, making other people die, the bad guys. Then I didn't care about them. I didn't, I guess I dehumanized them in my mind so it wouldn't bother me because it


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[Assistant] You know, cause they're just, they're just, they're not people, they're your target. You just whack them and that's it.


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[Assistant] And uh, I was, I was definitely prepared to die. Matter of fact, you know.


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[Assistant] I thought that would be like the end of my career, like kinda, but uhm.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, I've been on the LPO side of that. I've been on the not new guy side of that. I've been on the new guy side of that. I've been on the chief side of it.


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[Assistant] I usually told the guys, you know, you're on time, be motivated, cause it's fun.


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[Assistant] For those of you that think, like, the SEAL teams to me is a thousand times more than I thought it would be. It's a fucking blast. It's the best thing ever. It's the best men's club in the world.


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[Assistant] But, like I said, you're trying to build these guys, have these guys build their own reputation. You know?


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[Assistant] Confidence. Nobody has any confidence in the first day of the team. Nobody.


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[Assistant] Uhm, trying to still confidence in him and, uh, I used to tell him, you know,


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[Assistant] Should be seen, not heard. Carry a pen and paper. Be on time. And shut the fuck up.


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[Assistant] Eventually that'll come out in a year. You know, so just, just ask questions if you need to. Be on time. Listen. Do your job.


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[Assistant] Show the guys the right way to do things, and if it's not the right way, you know.


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[Assistant] Tell them how to know the difference. Show them how to know, do what they did for me. You know, and they look, you look in their eyes and they're just like, Roger, but no, you don't get it. You have no, show me what I just said. Okay. Just say you don't understand, you know, but that's about it. Just try to be, uh,


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[Assistant] You know, talk about being steady. We had a situation one time when I was, I was a platoon chief and we were working hard, wicked hard, like going up tempo was through the roof. The battle rhythm was shot to hell cause it was just go, go, go, go, go. And the guys were getting tired and stuff.


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[Assistant] And we had a meeting about it and I didn't say anything and they're like, if we can just slow down a little bit, you know, and I was like, okay, I mean, legitimate bitch, you know, cause sometimes you go, go, go like that. Things getting safe and you start making mistakes.


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[Assistant] But we hadn't really made any mistakes at that point, and I said...


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[Assistant] Put it in perspective, at this time, like, Daba, some of them guys were like 22, 23 years old. I was like 38. And I go...


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[Assistant] I use the analogy, like we used to say, you're only as fast as the slowest guy in your patrol. Maybe the guy that's got more weight, carrying more equipment. So he sets the pace. And I go, and I go, they'll, you agree with that? And everyone's like, yeah, yeah. Well.


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[Assistant] We'll take a break when the oldest guy here gets tired, and that's me, and I'm not tired.


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[Assistant] Uh, have I transitioned to civilian life?


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[Assistant] Kind of ish, a little, I just don't like it. I mean, it's, it's terrible. Like, there's no action. I mean, there's no, you know, going, who didn't like going to work on a Monday morning? It was the best. I mean, and, you know, and that.


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[Assistant] Am I searching for another things? Probably, you know, uh, I don't know. I don't-


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[Assistant] That's such a hard question to put in perspective. I mean, I live in New Hampshire now and I work 40 hours a week. I do all right, but I don't, there's no.


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[Assistant] You know, the magic in my life is like, gone. I mean, that was, that was the magic, the glue that held me together as the teams, you know.


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[Assistant] You know, I got some good families back there, you know, that, that helped me out, like friends of mine, friends of my family, and like, the Murphys, you know.


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[Assistant] The Daniels, the Downs, I mean, there's just, it's a, you know, if I don't get to people back home's name, I'm sorry, but, uh, you know, I got really good friends that, that try to help me kind of, but they just have no idea, like,


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[Assistant] You know, there's one old teen guy back there that's like from the 70s, you know, and I talked to him and it's like, Roger, you know, then there's a Sergeant Major retired 30 meters back there, but it's a small town and it's like, I drink a lot.


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[Assistant] You know, I work a lot too, so I'm kind of functioning that way, but there's no... I dunno.


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[Assistant] Well, I guess I'm still looking for something, but it's just the high wars. Just like, I don't know. It's, I think you could say it's.


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[Assistant] The fucking best. It's like the best thing ever. You know, and once you get done with a big firefight, you're like,


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[Assistant] You wanna go back and like, can we do that again and again and again? It was so much fun.


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[Assistant] I mean even, I mean it sucks, it's hard, but it's, it's great.


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[Assistant] I mean, we're just, cause if you think about like, they say heroes, right? To me, the real heroes are them guys standing a post out there with minimal training that don't want to be there and still do their job.


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[Assistant] Define American soldiers, sailors, marines, you know, airmen, whatever. For us, that's our profession, like.


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[Assistant] You know, that's like, we didn't even want to go home. It's like our blood and our guts, it's in our DNA. That's what we want to be. So, I mean, how do you, you don't just...


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[Assistant] You know, there's gonna be, I don't care, you know, I'm not gonna go, I don't go see a counselor or nothing, because I think I'm strong enough that, you know, I can handle it, but it's not easy.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's so true and they, the service to me, I wanted when I was eight, I enlisted when I was seventeen, when I, when I was eighteen, got out when I was what, forty-five, forty-four, whatever, and it never lied to me. They always paid me, and they'll pay me for the rest of my life, and everything they said was true. Do this. They go, oh the military's a bunch of bullshit. Yeah, there's little things, but overall,


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[Assistant] You know, and well, that's just part of whatever being a man and stuff, but they never lied to me. It was always just really, really good. And civilian life's not like that.


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[Assistant] I mean, I deal with people, and for the most part, everybody out there is a good person, I believe.


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[Assistant] But I get mad because of the misuse of the military now. I mean, it's so misuse, it's crazy.


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[Assistant] Go over to where ISIS is and smoke these sons of bitches. What are we waiting for?


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[Assistant] I, I don't get it. Cause, but on the flip coin, people are like, we gotta pay the deficit cause we don't want our children to pay it. Yeah, but you want them to fight the war?


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[Assistant] Let's go. We got the muscle right now. I know what we're waiting for. This is a crock of shit. Hopefully that'll change.


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[Assistant] Well, I think for me, you have to treat it like mission men in that order. And to me, there's no use. You know, the milk is on the floor.


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[Assistant] There's no use crying over it, you know. EOD doesn't.


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[Assistant] You know, defuse a bomb that already went off, okay? What you gotta do is try not to lose any more of your men. Okay?


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[Assistant] Now you just gotta do the mission with the dead guy.


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[Assistant] And I know that sounds maybe cruel, so there ain't no time to sit there and mourn or do any of that. You have to complete your op. You have to do your mission. Right? Uhm.


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[Assistant] There's plenty of time to mourn. There's plenty of time to figure out what went wrong or what didn't go wrong or whatever happened when you're back at Neop Stun.


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[Assistant] And that's why we train like that. When we train and we're going through a building.


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[Assistant] And they put a guy down, you just step over him and clear the house, cause you don't want to get...


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[Assistant] You know, you can train all your life, but when something happens like that, it's very hard not to just go.


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[Assistant] Oh my God, I got somebody killed. You know, what happened? What happened? Cause I take it very personally. Cause it was one of my guys and I racked my brain for a long time. And then, uh, I figured out that, well, you know, I just got to do my job and be a leader, you know, and I can't let the rest of the guys down.


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[Assistant] I can't let myself down, or my team, or my country, so I gotta do what I gotta do to get out of there. Not get out of there, but complete the opp.


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[Assistant] And then figure it out. Then take care of him as best we can. And have a lot of respect. And that's about the best way I can answer that.


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[Assistant] You know, when that happened, I was thinking about that.


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[Assistant] And I started getting like concerned, like do I have anything, feelings at all? And then we came back from that deployment. I remember maybe, I don't know, six months later or something.


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[Assistant] It may not sound like, it may shock you, but I used to like cats. I used to like cats, you know.


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[Assistant] You always seem like a cat guy. I like dogs too, you know, like just me and my girlfriend at the time had cats. And my cat died.


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[Assistant] And I bawled like a little baby for like three hours that just, I think it was just a point in me waiting for it to come out.


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[Assistant] You know, and I'd be like, okay, cause you're a team guy, you're around that stuff all the time. People getting maimed, shot killed and blown up and, you know, and then.


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[Assistant] It kind of festers in that, I think, you know, it's kind of deep and stuff, but whatever. I'm not really that deep of a person.


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[Assistant] And it just came out and I was like, you know, that's kind of cool. So maybe I was just, you know, I took the, like, be hard thing a little too, too, too much probably, but.


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[Assistant] Nah, just shout out to all my chums and all my brothers in the teams and, you know, all the people that know me, my family and everybody and, uh, thanks for being so nice to me. And the teams, thanks for being so nice to me and letting me do all those wicked cool things, you know.


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[Assistant] And, uh, Jaco, thanks for having me. It's so good to see you, my brother. Always. Echo, pleasure. Me too, pleasure. I mean, just, just phenomenal, you know. You don't know how many people watch your show, and watch this.


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[Assistant] I was part of that crew in the teams who like, fist fought and drank a lot and so.


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[Assistant] That kind of trained us, like being hungover and stuff, like, I mean we would be like hungover and go to work and you work out for three hours.


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[Assistant] So these guys, I know guys like, they could never do that.


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[Assistant] So we're kinda like bottom feeders, so when shit got bad, we're like, eh, whatever.


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[Assistant] Again, also I spent a lot of time at Nylon.


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[Assistant] I didn't have anything else but that, like I said, I wasn't the best shooter, I wasn't the biggest guy, but I had that. I always had that.


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[Assistant] Right, absolutely, but like in our case, I think it can be categorized as that we are, uh,


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[Assistant] We're lunatics. Yeaah, like math. Because who wants who?


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[Assistant] Well, I, I fell out of a helicopter and broke my heel bone on Halloween day. Yeah. And I deployed and well, actually I went over it before our deployment. So I deployed in March.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I got, I got a Hammond and I cut my cast off with these bolt cutters.


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[Assistant] I mean, I was still hobbling when we deployed, but it just, it just kind of went away. There's no way I was missing that. No way.


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[Assistant] This is Jocko Podcast number 52 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening Echo.


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[Assistant] A special book is, you know, what are you gonna do special on this day?


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[Assistant] We, we are gonna do something special because today is special.


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[Assistant] But today isn't special because it's the 52nd podcast.


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[Assistant] Just like, I don't go overboard with special holidays, like birthdays or Christmas or Valentine's Day or Veterans Day or even Memorial Day.


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[Assistant] Today isn't special because it's the 52nd podcast.


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[Assistant] When you're here and you're alive and you recognize that. Recognize that. That you're alive today.


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[Assistant] That makes every day special, makes every day a miracle.


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[Assistant] Makes every day a gift. And that might seem like a, like a tripe.


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[Assistant] And if you've seen brave young men who give their lives on the battlefield for their brothers.


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[Assistant] Multitude of heartless weapons. Cancer and disease and suicide and accidents and addiction and murder and war.


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[Assistant] And if you've seen those things, then you know it isn't a platitude and it isn't cliche. You know it's true.


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[Assistant] And so, what are we gonna do special for this podcast right here? The same thing that we always do. Gonna give it everything we've got. We're gonna leave it all on the mat.


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[Assistant] Not because this is number 52, not because it's been one year, not because we made it this far.


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[Assistant] Like we always do, and we're gonna make it count.


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[Assistant] I did go a little bit long with the last podcast, you know, we were introducing the Korean War, the coldest war on that last episode. So I went a little, I went a little crazy on that one.


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[Assistant] We're going straight to Q&A. From. From the interwebs.


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[Assistant] When we deployed. And it was really good, you know, cause once I was in a leadership position, I could kinda make that happen pretty easily.


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[Assistant] I had mats. No, I had mats. And I actually got mats from the team. And then we would just put them on a big pallet when you deploy, you go on, you put all your gear on these big pallets. So some of those pallets would have mats on them.


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[Assistant] And then, when we would go into, now pre-war,


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[Assistant] It was, you know, we, we go on deployment, we just bring mats and train wherever we could train. And then once the war started.


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[Assistant] And I still brought mats. I was like, hey, war? It's not like they're gonna have us working 24 hours a day. So, and if they did, we just wouldn't be able to train, but I was prepared for training. And what I did, both my deployments to Iraq is I had a, what's called a GP medium tent, which is basically a really, really big tent.


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[Assistant] And they have air conditioning and they have dual walls so it stays kinda cool. And I just made that into a little mini fight room. Put mats out.


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[Assistant] And then I would just train when there was downtime. And there is downtime when you're on deployment. I mean there is definitely downtime when you're on deployment. And like what are you gonna do with your downtime?


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[Assistant] Is the question. Now, some guys with their downtime, they decide to do something that's maybe not super productive. I'll give you an example of that. There was some guys on my first deployment to Iraq.


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[Assistant] And they played Halo. It's a video game. Have you heard of it? Yes. Okay, it's a first person shooter video game. And so my guys...


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[Assistant] We're so, they just played anytime we weren't working, which, you know, our missions at that point, we're doing a little direct action missions. They'd only take a few hours, even, you know, the planning and you know, every two or three days. So you had time, right? And so all the time and they had the, they had wires set up so they could play different


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[Assistant] And meanwhile the guys that were a little bit more hardcore, we were training the Jiu-Jitsu. But these guys, and actually these guys were good mugs too. But what's funny is, so I kinda thought, like, what is wrong with these guys? Why are they doing this? But, you know, whatever. And then all of a sudden they had a...


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[Assistant] The, the group above us, the group that was in charge of the seals that were there.


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[Assistant] Uhm, it's called the CGISODA, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force. That group.


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[Assistant] Like, in all the different special operations groups went and did this Halo tournament.


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[Assistant] And I don't know if I'm proud of this or not proud of this.


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[Assistant] But two of my guys that entered the tournament


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[Assistant] They, they, they won. But not only did they win, I guess the way you play Halo, you get, you can die multiple times, and so after a certain number of times, like you play to a certain number of deaths, I guess. But anyways, in the finals,


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[Assistant] These two guys beat the other guys that were from some army group or something. They beat them 50 deaths to two.


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[Assistant] So, I was just saying to myself, really? Uh, so anyways, uh, the next deployment, guys were playing some other, I, I never, I, I don't play video games, but the other guys played in, when we were in Ramadi, guys were playing, I wanna say John Madden football. That's a good one. Yeah, see, I don't know, cause I don't play video games. Check it. Echo Charles.


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[Assistant] But, uh, but what I was doing during those times, during those down times is yes, bring, um, bring


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[Assistant] Being under a stressful situation? Well what's gonna help you with a stressful situation? A physical outlet? A little mental break?


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[Assistant] And guess what? Guess what gives you a physical outlet and gives you mental break from doing some jiu-jitsu, so.


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[Assistant] You know, of course there's times where we'd go and we'd go in the field or we'd have multiple back to back to back to back operations and we wouldn't be able to train, no big deal. Of course the job takes the total priority over it. But uhm, yeaah. So I would always train and I'll tell you one more thing.


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[Assistant] When I would go on deployment, like let's say you're a guy that trains and you go on deployment, well there's gonna be somebody that will train with you. Even if they're never trained before, somebody's gonna go, yeah, I'll train with you.


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[Assistant] That's, that happened to me, you know, where I went on deployment with a bunch of guys that didn't know anything.


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[Assistant] And I just was teaching them, and when I came back from a six month deployment, this is before the war.


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[Assistant] I was definitely way better than I was before I left. So even though I was only training with guys that were not even close to as good as me, just training all the time and just going with guys, you know, strong, tough team guys made me better and when I got back I had


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[Assistant] Even if you're just have bodies to move around, and you can focus on your offense, you can put yourself in a bad position, so there's a bunch of ways to get better while you're doing it. So yea man, you can train, you can train on deployment for sure. We just had a couple guys


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[Assistant] They come back from deployment from the Marine Corps and you know, they, they were out on a shipboard deployment. They trained all the time, you know, just came back to victory MMA and they, they've been training the whole time. They got good too. They improved their game a lot.


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[Assistant] Uh, in fact, the early days of jiu-jitsu for me, I spent, that's why when no-gi started getting popular, I kinda knew no-gi because we used to train in


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[Assistant] I mean, we were trading no gi. I don't even know what, I'll have to ask Dean where the idea came. Cause even in Samba, you wear a jacket, right? And he was a Samba guy too.


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[Assistant] It's the same thing, I mean, I've talked about it before, like, I would get guys that were training, even if they're a lower level, and I would just train with all of them, and just line them up and go. And then they'd be training with each other too, you know, and I would teach little classes and say, hey, this is how you do this, and, you know, you know me, I kinda like to roll more, but, so I would always end up rolling a lot.


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[Assistant] So yea man, getting after it. You can definitely, you gotta find a way to do it and then you make time to do it.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I think that's a very good way to lead up the chain of command in that scenario and you gotta choose your battles, uh, because it is possible in any job to cry wolf.


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[Assistant] Definitely attend the meetings, right? You show up for the meetings, you attend the meetings, you see what they're about, see what the deal is. What is he trying to accomplish? Maybe he has some really good thing that he's trying to accomplish, gotta put out word, or we don't know yet. Maybe his vision is that this only, he's only gonna hold these mandatory meetings until he gets a flow and he gets everybody on board and then he can go, cool, we don't have to do this anymore, you guys got it.


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[Assistant] I don't know what his vision is. You know, what's he trying to make happen? Let's give him that credit as the leader to say, hey,


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[Assistant] You know you're calling this meeting, we're gonna show up there, we're gonna do our best to participate and, and get the most out of the meeting.


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[Assistant] Find out what it's all about. So go to the meetings. And then, now you got your guys, so you might be a little bit worried.


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[Assistant] About your guys, right? Saying, hey, why are you making us attend this meeting that the boss said we gotta go to? And on that one,


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[Assistant] What I would likely do is make everyone attend a few of them, and I would do it, say, hey guys, the boss is having a meeting, no, we're not gonna get paid, but look, we're gonna get word, we're gonna find out what's going on, so I want everyone, everyone's gotta be there, right? So you don't pass the buck.


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[Assistant] You, you, you maintain the responsibility of what's happening. You own it.


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[Assistant] And then maybe, maybe after a little while though, you look at the boss and you say, hey boss, you know what? These meetings are good to go. I'm getting a lot out of them, but I'm not going to make my, I don't want to make my guys go. I want to pass the word to them. So is that all right if I have them skip the meetings, but I'll be there and then I'll put out the information.


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[Assistant] And, you know, most likely you'll get a, hey, that sounds good, especially if you've been attending the meetings and you've been participating, you've been raising your hand and saying, taking notes and saying, yeah, we got that boss. We can make that happen. If you've been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that kissing ass? No, no, no. It's building a relationship, right? Now, there is a dis- a distinction, right, between kissing ass and building a relationship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, are there some bosses that feed off of that? Yes, there are. And you might have to play that game a little bit. You might have to play that game a little bit. Not gonna feel good. That's why we have to put our ego in check.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's what I would do. So I think you made the right call. Let's get in, go to a bunch of these meetings, see what they're all about. And maybe, you know, eventually you're saying, hey boss, you know, these are uncompensated. We could probably utilize these hours better if we did some this or we did that. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is a good, good straightforward method. I think you made the right call and let us know how it goes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What does the boss want? Someone that's kissing their ass and saying wow, what a wonderful idea. Or someone that's actively participating like a professional. That's what they want. That's what they want. So do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That are coming into the military. Cause when you go to OCS, most of the people that are going through OCS with have never been in the military before. They're coming from college and they graduated college and now they're going to OCS. So they got 13 weeks to get turned into an officer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What they do is they make you yell everything. Why do they do that? The reason they make you yell everything is because there's some people that aren't confident when they speak.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so, everything that they're gonna say, they're gonna be shy about saying it. Well, at OCS, you've actually gotta yell everything that you say, cause you can't go on the bridge of a ship and say,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can, can we turn the shift, you know, 90 degrees to the port? No, no, no. You have to speak up. You have to say, hey, we're turning 90 degrees port. I don't actually know what the command is because I wasn't a service warfare officer, but you know, you say, hey, we're going to.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Turn 90 degrees poor. You can't say it in a timid way. And so the way they beat that out of you is by making you yell every single thing that you do when you're in officer candidate school. So.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, what we did was the upperclassmen that control you when you're going through. There's like a class that's getting ready to graduate and they kind of control you when the drill instructors aren't there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so they also make little money for their fund.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the way they make money for the fund is selling soda and candy in this little, this little closet, right? I mean, it's, it's, it's authorized.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So my class, I said hey guys, when you go into, I was the class president, I said when you go, I said when you go into the office to buy candy,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or soda, which I don't recommend, but if you do, if you do do it, go in there and be ballistic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would jump in the ocean. I would roll around in the sand. And then when you get back to the instructor that told you to go get wet and sandy, you'd have to go back to them and say, who ya instructor Charles, to make sure that they knew that you got wet and sandy. So what I would do is I'd go, I didn't do it immediately, but when I figured out that I could do this, I did it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I would go, I would get wet, I would get sandy, I would completely, I would completely cover my, every square inch of my body with sand. And then I would put sand into my mouth. I would fill myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, uh, it was pretty fun. So I like to have that attitude. Like, oh, you wanna make me do something? Great, I'll do it. And I'm gonna do it with, with vigor and enthusiasm. And, and then we literally, in my, in my Buds class, when, at a certain point,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We did this to one of my, uh, buddies. We, so there's something called flights where you run up this hill and you carry, uh, pallets. You know what a pallet is, right? They're, I don't know, they're made of wood or steel. We had both there. They call them flights and they actually have a little flight tower.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] One guy, one pallet? Yeah, one guy per pallet. They'd be like, okay, who came in last place? And I'd say, I came in last place. Then you gotta do it again. But the funniest was, when you came back down,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you were slow or they just wanted to hammer you more, they'd say, hey, you're on fire. Go, go put it out. Which means you gotta run then your pallet down to the ocean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, well one time I came back down and I said, they said, you have to request permission to land. And one time I came back down and said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what I mean? And then, yeah, we, but we always had a good time when we were doing, like, we, we used to go on, we were on a ship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then you go and the ship do something called an unrep where you, they load gear, they load food and supplies and fuel from another ship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause it's, it's, it's whatever. It sucks, right? Cause you gotta go up there and move a bunch of boxes like a moving party basically. But we actually turned it into a moving party. Emphasis on party. We would go out and have fun, be laughing, throwing stuff and, and just basically getting after it. Even though it was just labor. But why not have a good time?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So maybe you have really bad vision, maybe you have really bad hearing in an ear, maybe you have some irregular heart thing, maybe there's just some


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a bunch of things that can do that to people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I'm gonna assume that it was bad enough that you can't join the military at all. Okay. The next thing is can you get into some kind of police or law enforcement? That's the next question because maybe there's something that disqualifies you from the military, but you could still get into police and law enforcement.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by the way, you know, if you can't get into that, what kind of, maybe some kind of an anti-terror agency that you could possibly go into. And I would say the next step from there is


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, what kind of an intelligence agency could go work for? You know, what kind of a person, you know, could you be a person that learns a language that learns, you know, some technical skills that allows you to pursue people through the interwebs?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're doing it virtually, right? But you're still hunting down terrorists and, and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Catching bad guys and preventing terror attacks. So even though it's not, you know, shooting a machine gun, it still is a, has a huge impact. And I'll tell you what, in future, in the future it might even have a bigger impact than the guys that are shooters.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, there's that, there's that avenue to look at. And same thing in, in, in law enforcement. There's certain professions that you can get where you're not actually a police officer, but you're a


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A, you know, a forensic, a forensic scientist that goes and looks at crime scenes and tries to figure out what happened. So there's definitely some, some,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then let's say you can't do any of those things. Well then what? Well for me it's really easy. Construction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Software engineering, being a salesperson, going into technology, being a plumber, being an electrician, going into automotive repair, automotive repair.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, what? All those jobs, if you are getting after those jobs, they're all, you can, you can excel, you can own your own company, you can get after it, you can lead, you can make a ton of money, any one of those jobs you can make a ton of money, any of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you are a professional and you take pride in your work and you make- I saw something the other day. I wish I could find it. I'd try and post it again. It was just, uh, a plumber had obviously done this massive job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Where all these pipes were all coming and going into one thing and there was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, probably 20 or 30 little pieces of pipe, but they were all perfectly aligned, perfectly exact, and it was in some, you know, storage, you know, uh, mechanical room, but it just looked like so professional.