Jocko Podcast 87 w/ Echo Charles: How to Act as a Leader: “Clay Pigeons of St. Lo”

this is Jocko podcast number 87 with echo Charles and me Jocko willing good evening echo good evening I’d been away from infantry and from the army I’d grown up in for far too long walking through the gates of Colman barracks was stepping into the welcome past the old army had not died after all the 18th was military perfection men stepped smartly across meticulously kept grounds starched uniforms blue infantry scarves dazzling shined brass and boots snappy salutes and cheerful good afternoon sirs marked my journey to the HQ where I design in the spirit of this fine unit was already infecting me the hot stifling windless day the ragweed pollen that blew in from adjacent fields covering the camp and immediately activating my hay fever the rundown boring camp itself none of it mattered as inwardly I was transported to an island Oasis untouched by turbulent seas and it was all thanks to one man the Battle Group commanding officer who would forever be my model mentor and friend Colonel Glover s John’s was the finest senior infantry commander I’d ever seen or ever would see again we shared a mutual abiding respect almost from the moment we met he was my kind of soldier and I was his he was a warrior Patton’s aid before World War two then during the war he’d hit the beaches of Normandy as part of the 29th division and fought from those bloody shores all the way across Europe until victory was achieved as a battalion commanding officer he’d headed the task force to capture the critical French town of saint-lo in Korea he’d served as executive officer than regimental commander in my own 40th division his reputation there was awesome one story that made its way through the division was that a wild new excel had come into the to to forth gotten down on his belly in the mud to check the unit’s machine guns field of fire and promptly moved two thirds of the machine-gun bunkers that had sat there for two years later when he took over his commanding officer the 224th and the unit moved to a new sector he’d out posted a spur about 200 yards in front of one of his companies so the North Koreans couldn’t do it first but this move was considered seizing ground and against the no-win rules of the war and soon the XCore commanding general flew down the John’s position to discuss the matter with him after exam examining the situation general white told him he could keep the spur but was never to advanced again even his outpost line without express permission from Corps because blue eyes sparkled like those of a wise and truly tested man who long since realized that humor could be found in just about anything he had seen his share of horror his cheeks were rosy and the dueling scar that crossed one of them in no way detracted from his Ghent rugged yet gentle old soldier face maybe the scar even enhanced it I don’t know but it sure gave him more character then provided a good yarn to boot in any event Colonel Glover s John’s was a 49 year old stud Colonel John’s was a basics man and a total soldier he taught and insisted that his company commanders teach things like terrain appreciation the knowledge of which was a basic tool of a soldiers trade to be able to look at a piece of ground and appreciate the slightest differences in the contour to notice how the ground unfolds and be able to think there’s cover over there cover the one essential providing protection from direct enemy fire to recognize a streamline a gully or a treat area as an avenue of approach through which a unit could move unseen to understand and identify the best ground from which to launch or repel an attack shoot scoot and communicate the morning battle drill began with fire and maneuver one-man firing while his buddy moved a fireteam moving while its counterpart fired Colonel John’s likened it to a fighter’s bobbing weaving and jabbing we kept the mythical enemy pinned down while we jabbed our way to close on his position that’s cover and moved by the way the colonel was right there with us to set the example and we did it until we got it right we’d end up black and blue running hitting the ground and rolling into firing position with full field equipment on is not without pain but no one bitched because John’s again and again reinforced a simple equation the quicker you get to the ground and you get your weapon into position the sooner you’ll be delivering effective fire on the enemy and the longer you’ll stay alive still this truism was just one part of the overall strive to better your best philosophy that characterized the first year of the 18th under Colonel John’s and deputy commanding officer couch in couches words it was our policy to encourage excellence among the soldiers particularly in bayonet training unarmed combat shooting and total physical fitness this is what really makes a soldier if he mashed masters these subjects he’ll fight for my experience in Korea I could not have agreed more so that’s a little opener from a book called about-face my favorite book by it’s written by colonel david hackworth and he’s talking about a guy that was his commander in the early 1960s hackers had gotten out of the army and then came back in after a couple years because he realized civilian life was not fun and so he came back in and he got stationed in Germany and this guy by the name of Colonel Glover s John’s who by the way he did a course which dedicates he dedicates the book to infantrymen into some other soldiers that he worked with long away but to Glover Jones he says dedicates his book to Glover Jones who showed us how to lead so Glover Jones outstanding combat leader and luckily we can all learn from Glover Jones not only from what he passes through hackworth in hack words book but also from his own book club arrest challenge wrote his own book called the clay pigeons of saint-lo about his push from Normandy and across France that Hackworth just referenced now it’s interesting when we go into this book the clay pigeons is Salo he writes the book in the third person and he says that it was just easier for him to write it that way so in other words he doesn’t say I did this and I did that he says major Jones did this and major dodge John said something else but what’s interesting is he said that one of the reasons he was able to do one of the reasons that he did that was because the guy that was commanding in combat was a battalion commander and comment was different from his normal self hmm as we had this combat John’s combat Glover Jones I was out there leading things and he had normal John’s that was the way he lived his normal life but it was easier for him to write and more natural for him to write about this major John’s guy in the third person he also lexically can give him it gives me the ability to kind of detach from it and explain what was going on so when you hear it it’s all about major John’s instead of being about me and about I but it’s it’s him and even though it’s written from the third person it is absolutely a first-person account from a battalion commander in combat close intense combat and let’s pick it up going to the book the clay pigeons of saint-lo here we go sharp ballistic cracks pounded his eardrums so rapidly they seemed like one impossibly prolonged rifle shot he was instantly paralyzed with overwhelming fright the radio operator Jimmy slumped forward at his feet another man stumbled past to fall into the ditch ahead then Newcombe cleared the eight-foot hedgerow apparently with one jump but the major was too shocked to move his stomach nodded itself into a tight ball it jammed against his pounding heart while his breath stopped completely for an instant then came in jerky gasps the hair on his head felt as if it were rising like the hair on a cat’s back his skin prickled all over but the most awful thing was the cold empty feeling in his guts the burst of German machine-gun fire lasted only seconds but it seemed like a lifetime before he could reach up and snatch a grenade from his pistol belt he’d never heard a bullet crack by inches from his head he didn’t know they sounded like that he thought there was a German with a burp pistol behind the nearest tree on top of the hedgerow he grabbed the pin on the grenade but before he could throw it something made him stop and yell anybody on the other side he got a quick answer hell yes before he could lower his arm the blast of a rifle right in his lap made him flinch he squirmed back even closer against the hedgerow as Martin and grim cell went into action they’d been at the front all 11 days since a continuous line had been established in Normandy the crack of bullets was nothing new to them almost side-by-side lying flat in the ditch they fired methodically across him and over Jimmy’s head mechanically he checked the pin in the grenade then still a little dazed hooked it back on to his belt harnessed he looked at the man who had fallen in the ditch and now was trying to weakly push himself up it was lieutenant Sadler his face already greenish gray was shocked he had been hit five or six times in the head chest and both arms major Jones knew instinctively that Sadler was as good as dead he called to him to lie still and take it easy but the Charlie Company commander was already beyond hearing Jones felt that he ought to do something constructive something to get their minds off the tragedy that had just struck but it was without inspiration merely numb hey you guys yelled grim zl– let’s scram out of here that brought the commander out of the days he’d been in ever since the deafening burst of enemy fire perhaps two minutes before he leaned forward and shook Jimmy’s shoulder come on Jim it’s all over now you can get up but Jimmy didn’t move major Jones shook him again then he saw blood oozing slowly thickly brightly across his own shoe gently he pulled a Jimmy’s far shoulder a neat clean little bullet hole in the boys helmet came into view so the major knew that Jimmy was dead something impelled him to pull Jimmy over until he could look into his face the eyes were closed and an odd little half-smile made Jimmy look as if he were asleep dreaming pleasant dreams slowly the major lowered him back to the ground and for a fleeting instant watch Jimmy’s lifeblood continued to flow across his shoe so that’s his really his first experience in combat and you can see obviously it’s it’s a hell of a wake-up call and the whole book the whole book is like this it’s an incredible book the the way he describes the battles and how they’re laid out and the way he lays out his own fonts and what’s going on it’s just it’s it’s an excellent outstanding book and it’s one of these books where as I had to consciously say to myself okay Jocko you cannot read this whole book on the podcast we need to you know people need to read it for themselves but the book is the description of combat like that that opening is phenomenal so let’s go back to the book now where that first battles over and he’s having some thoughts here we go back to the book as he walked he couldn’t keep his thoughts away from the hot spot he’d been in a few minutes before and the lessons he learned so quickly but it’s such a price in little more than an hour of his first fight he lost two company commanders to radio operators and three other men besides just escaping death himself as he thought about the crack of those machine-gun bullets his stomach began to squirm again until by a conscious effort he forced it to behave he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been hit to Jimmy’s head had been not more than two feet from his own new come in the front and Sadler directly behind him had been hit the whole burst must have missed him by scant inches he decided and he very seriously thank God for his safety at the same time he promised never again to risk the lives of others if he could avoid it it was a bitter lesson repeated every time the eyes of his mind focused on Jimmy’s bright blood oozing over issue or on Sadler’s sudden death he looked down at the shoe shuddered at the still red stain and tried to scuff it off on the grass on his way to the regimental command post the major passed a knocked out Sherman tank what distinguished this smoking brown Hulk from others he had seen that day was the single blackened claw-like hand and forearm that was thrust out of the turret toward the sky the fingers were separate and more than half curled like the talent of a striking eagle but this hand was not striking it seemed rather to be calling down an imprecation on the fate that had let it die there in agony so now he gets to the regimental commander well boom the regimental commander what’s going on I’ve just been trying to get to you John saluted it as he answered sir we’re stuck at the second hedgerow and I had to use my reserves to protect my flanks it doesn’t look as if we’ll get to La Forge today unless we have better luck later have many casualties I don’t know about the companies yet because I haven’t had any reports from them except the yells about their flanks and counter-attacks but NAB was wounded early Sadler is dead and I’ve lost two operators besides three other men out of my own CP group he was still too full of his experience not to want to tell about it the colonel listened sympathetically well he said when the major was through we’ve got to keep going regardless Division wants to get the forge tonight so yeah you said that rough day first day of combat guess what we’re still going and you know one of the things I in that opening paragraph that I’d pointed out was you could see his reaction when that first gunfight broke out his reaction was sort of overwhelming overwhelmed by the whole scenario but his two guys and what happened is and you know he talks about this in the book but he had gone on the Normandy but he wasn’t in charge of a battalion yet he was sort of back with the regimental command and then one of the battalion commanders was out of the fight and I forget if the battalion commander was killed or wounded but he went and took this battalion commanders job so he wasn’t on the real frontlines until they were starting to push through France a little bit then it was only a matter of days but these well I guess it was 11 days because these guys he said that these other guys had been on the frontlines for 11 days so these guys it’s been 11 days but guess what they’re they start getting shot at boom there and they’re in the mode they’re returning fire and you can see the returning fire really close so close that it scared him yeah and and that’s one of the things that you know a lot of times I talk about simunition and training with simunition and how awesome it is and that’s totally true and I love training with simunition and it really is very beneficial for your tactical skill level but you also absolutely have to do live fire and the reason you have to do live fire I mean there’s a bunch of reasons you have to do it you have to learn to shoot real over bullets and hit real targets or with your bullets but also guns are out and you need to condition yourself to be used to having a a mark 48 machine gun four inches maybe not four inches but like 16 inches from your head and your buddy is dumping rounds downrange and you have to be able to think during that and not be overwhelmed by it yeah the the simunition this one’s an ass like how what’s the difference in loudness this is not even comparable so is it so it’s not even really like a gun shot no it’s not like like not comparable it’s not the noise is not comparable the noise is less than a cap gun oh okay yeah like a airsoft is my gun is loud and a mark 48 machine gun it’s really loud really now and it any little shockwaves yeah everyone is a little shocked with you get little and so that’s why when that’s why it is so important to train live-fire and it’s also important to be comfortable not only your self shooting in close proximity with other people but also them shooting near you because you’ve got to trust that you guys it around you now there’s standard operating procedures that there’s things that you don’t do that keep it safe but it’s still I mean when somebody makes our bet if somebody makes a really bad mistake they can walk into your field of fire yeah and so you have to be heads-up but you still have to take shots with people that are really close to you yeah in a firefight by the way well yeah in a firefight but if you haven’t done it during training your first your first minute in a firefight is going to be just just overwhelmed and you knocked me overwhelmed by enemy fire you to be overwhelmed by your own guy shooting the Myriam and you’re going to be hitting getting hit by brass and and just it hurts hi Oh Brad yeah ha the wrath and the links coming out of a mark 48 are like little weapons itself and they hit your a bit yeah we had a one of our machine gunners was a lefty and he picked up and started shooting he picked up a machine gun and started shooting left-handed and that dumps the brass basically right onto your right bicep and he had a kid bruise on his on his right arm that looked like somebody beat him with a with a baseball bat in the arm that’s what a mark 48 ejector port does to you it doesn’t play around so again going back to the situation he’s in right now he’s he’s had all these casualties and they’re like the major says hey yep regardless we got to keep going which is which is the way war actually is so that night he has a little company little huddle with the company commanders and you know just to just to kind of spell this out if you’re wondering what this is all about so he’s got the he’s a battalion commander so he’s actually got this written out in the book but a battalion of the Italian in 1944 was about 900 guys 900 men 28 officers you got three companies the three companies are broken down into three platoons each one of those platoons has a platoon leader each one of the companies has a company commander you a captain and so that’s what he’s talking about so he so that those are your kind of your hundred and fifty man fighting elements are these companies with three platoons in them of fifty people each about and it’s weird because people always think the military’s everything is perfectly structured but actually this this changes all the time not based on but it look based on your mission you know sometimes you might have a platoon that needs to get plussed up or a company that’s shorter people so there’s no there’s no consistent just all the time number you see what he says the actual number that they were supposed to have in a company at this time was each rifle company was made up of six officers and 186 men that’s what they are supposed to have in them now you’re going to find out real quick that they rarely have even close to a hundred but that’s what they’re supposed to have so at this point he’s bringing in these three company commanders to talk to them about kind of a plan and also to get a debrief on on what happened during the day and what their plan do had here we go back to the book he thought a moment and this is this is a one of the company commanders named lieutenant Ryan and he’s talking and he says he thought a moment and then added we might make it across the road if we pour a lot of smoke and mortars into him and then rush him but it’ll take but it’s getting awfully late to be beating around in this kind of country so trying to figure out how to move forward in lieutenant Ryan that was kind of lieutenant Ryan suggestion let’s mortar him put a bunch of smoke out and then we can move but guess what it’s getting late and if we’re running around once it gets dark it’s going to get scary Ryan stopped and looked at Kenny it was Kenny’s turn and Kenny you’re going to find out is a legit bad yes sir I only had a few minutes to look things over before Wendell came along and invited me back here to see you but that orchard is a terrible place no cover anywhere machine-guns covering every inch of it we lost a lot of men in there the first time he paused but we’ll do the best we can well rough or not we’re going ahead the major stated flatly by the way Kenny just took over for for one of the company commanders that have been wounded or killed now they start pushing and all of a sudden they’re pushing forward and again I have to skip through this book and I’m trying to highlight the leadership scenarios or the things that reveal the way human beings react in hard situations but when you read this book yourself you can really follow the tactical decision-making process and also how the battles went and what happened obviously I can’t go through the whole thing right now but at this point they’ve started pressing and all of a sudden he sees guys are running away running so you know as the company commander and he talks about this where he positions himself and obviously doesn’t position himself right on the front with the platoons he’s back a little bit at this point guys start he sees guys are running back towards him at first he thinks it might be Germans no it’s Americans it’s his guys and here we go back to the book the major got to his feet he started a crouching run to the left he had nearly reached the end of the field when four or five men yelling don’t shoot don’t shoot piled over the hedgerow that separated Charlie and Baker companies he stopped carbine alert as he loaded his gun wondering what this was all about a figure stepped out from the hedgerow and voiced the same question what’s going on here anyway just what’s this all about it was lieutenant IP rien arms spread wide to catch the running men carbine slung over his soldiers shoulder the picture of call he caught the leading man by his jacket which piled the others up in a tight little not the man pad panted Krauts paratroopers they’re right behind us run appear e’en glanced over the man shoulder unmoved well now I don’t see any crowds just look the men looked back all they could see were several Charlie Company men standing quietly rifles ready the leader of The Runaways relaxed then shuddered violently aperian went on I don’t think there’s any crowds chasing you at all let’s just go see about this the man tried to pull away from him but there were he cried there weren’t I tell you they came right over the hedge Ville and shot down right down the whole squad they got the sergeant and all the rest we’re the only ones left they nearly got me look he poked a finger through a hole in his jacket but I period unimpressed moved in the direction of Baker company even as the man protested dragging him along while the others followed meekly well IP Aryan went on let’s just go see what captain Weddell has to say about that all this he called softly to the men guarding the company flank see anything no sir the answer came back quickly and calmly the mortar observer and his little group of panic-stricken men disappeared over the head row the major knew he had just seen a wonderful example of leadership at its very finest IP Rhian quickly calmly and efficiently had stopped what could have been a rout so one leader steps out and really what he’s doing if you think about it he’s detached because he wasn’t in that situation where Germans came over and obviously shot at a more close range killed a couple guys when you know what a would have wounded this soldier who got shot through his jacket but he just gets he kind of gets the guy to detach Hey look there’s no one there calm down let’s go have a look let’s take a step back and that kind of calmness prevented everyone because because what can go in the other direction right welcome to the other decks you see people running you know that’s what happens you see people running you start running you know that that was very interesting in the in the I don’t remember some of those police shootings where I remember there’s one in New York City where something like 57 rounds were fired at somebody that was on and everyone’s going why why was everyone shooting and I’ll tell you what happens is you know for some reason they think if you think somebody’s has a weapon or a suspect or is going to do something bad and now you’ve got five or six people that are holding a gun on them well when one person starts shooting when people are not attached and when people are caught up in the moment and from starts pulling the trigger and it’s it’s it can be really devastating can be really devastating yeah so wait but when people are used to that kind of stress and they’re calm and the detached one person takes a shot you you actually instead of just firing yourself you actually assess and say okay what is he shooting at I need to get cover so there’s that’s why that training is so important to get people at a high stress level and still think through things and still be detached the stress is going to be there put it in a box monitor it don’t get in it yeah because you’re going to make bad decisions you might not make any decision you might just go off your reactions which I’m sitting here with a gun people are shooting I’m going to shoot – yeah that’s not I mean it’s like how you say when you’re not trained you don’t have experience in those types of situations like you’re the shooting example yeah it’s it’s one of those things where you see in jiu-jitsu when you start it’s exact literally the exact same thing right so in a shooting situation one guy shoots you hear the gunfire basically your brain just says okay it’s on there it’s 100 percent let’s go a full-speed hundred percent it’s on you can’t like gun shots are being fired it’s not not on you got to go hundred percent so in jujitsu when you first start you know how like the guys just going full speed the whole time yeah you’re in a spot where it’s like you can’t move here you can’t you’re completely trapped right here that’s the mission necessarily but you’re trapped that guy’s going crazy you know okay good just because you don’t know it’s on it’s either on or it’s not on yeah so when you name your differences though you’re what you’re talking about is an individual individual moment what I’m talking about is group it’s a group think scenario yeah we’re you know just like it happens when there’s a gun shot and everyone started running people do but the people the background only know what the running got people running in there running yeah yeah sure well you imagine how amped you are you think there’s a bad guy in a dark alley and you’re there with for your police partners or your or your your military partners you’re looking down now you think there’s an insurgent there and all of a sudden around cracks off you’re you’re lucky and there’s a there’s a situation that happened with it where there was an Iraqi soldier that had an accidental discharge you know that is like we like he was let’slet’s in and Lafe slave splatoon was taken out a building and I was actually outside the building you know because we were taking out multiple buildings but they were in one building and all of a sudden crack crack a couple rounds get shot off and you know what it was actually I’m pretty sure that it was pretty sure and RuPaul this is the whole cast of characters I’m pretty sure and RuPaul was that like the head of the train or close to the front of the train in inside that they were inside this building rounds get fired and and RuPaul is thinking okay I think I think I remember Andrew Paul tell me this in public okay well we’re gonna grenade these we’re going to throw frag grenades into this next room because people are shooting at us and it was a guy another heads up guy a couple feedback that knew where the gunfire came from the where it came from was an Iraqi soldier friendly Iraqi soldier had cracked off rounds and accidentally accidentally and you know luckily that that guy is a great guy of really heads up guy grabbed him almost killed almost choked the shit out of him right there but can you imagine you’re clearing a house where there’s suspected insurgent and all of a sudden rounds are 5 yeah well now you’re but this is the discipline yeah and and the guys knew okay they guys didn’t all just freaked out and started shooting the guys were you know somebody said hey will somebody grab the person that shot hey that was an ad okay wrap it back down wind it down everyone calm you know what I mean so there’s the difference between guys have been training really well and when you haven’t been through that country and also luckily that was that didn’t happen on the second night of deployment we were you know further into the deployment where guys had been through it was like we just talked about guys had guys had been through plenty of firefights at this point so they weren’t freaked out there was gun shops they were like okay wait a second where’s this gunshots coming from but that could have gone really really nasty so train train realistically all right at this point and and also just like some of the other books but we’ve read about world war 2 where we’ve got you know it’s basically movement it’s basically continually moving trying to take down targets trying to move forward trying to get through France trying to get to Berlin that’s that’s the situation and it’s the same thing here these guys this these battalions in this regiment and basically the whole task force is trying to move from from city to city or town to town through France and that’s what’s going on here so it’s a continual series of attack dig in attack dig in attack dig in and you know you can tell from the title the book what they’re going for is this this final you know some city of saint-lo in France so at this point there’s an attack that they were getting ready to go on and he’s trying to figure out why it got canceled and he’s talking to the commander and he says I think I think you got further from where you started than anyone else so he’s telling these general Major John’s your battalion went further than anyone else back book in fact I believe that’s why division cancelled your attack if you’ve made LaForge you would have been way out on a limb and stood a chance of being cut off major John’s elated at their comparative success was thankful that he had not renewed the attack and perhaps made another five hundred or a thousand yards they would have been out front like clay pigeons for anyone to knock down it was the first time he had seen a practical application of what was popularly known as the big picture supposedly concocted for edification of high brass and war correspondents yet sufficiently vague to cover a certain amount of air on the ground so the reason I wanted to call that out is he’s admitting that from his perspective like why are you stopping my attack and at this point they had they’ve gotten bogged down then they were ready to go again then they got back down and now they were read go and they get told to stop and so his first reaction kind what do you wait why are we stopping we’ve actually got some momentum right now and then he finds out that from the big picture the reason you’re not attacking is because you’re too far out I had everyone if you get go any further you might get surrounded and cut off now this is a situation where understanding why why is so helpful and especially if you push that all the way down to the frontline troops and to the frontline leadership that’s out there thinking hey we finally made some some offensive progress and we can move and we can really take it to the enemy and now you’re telling us to stop what is going on the headquarters is stupid they don’t get it they don’t understand actually they do understand but they need to do a better job of explaining why so they let the people know all right moving on to this next section here he’s checking out kind of his line now that they’re now that they’re dug in a little bit he’d gone to regiment you know it’s really easy to forget that these guys and I talked about this a bit but the best type of communications that they have is when they actually run wires between different between regiment between battalions between the companies they try and run wires because the radios are fairly temperamental on whether they work or not so they use radio as a backup but the primary communication is is running a wire and he had just gone back to regiment to meet face to face because a meeting face to face is very important and you know he just comes back up and he asks one of the company commander well actually I think it was his ops officer Newcomb he says hey any news and Newcombe his ops officer says nope everything’s quiet as a church the s3 looked at the battalion commander in the Starlight and grinned as he went on now major you don’t have to concern yourself with everything up here you just leave the details to us we’re used to looking after them so a little bit of decentralized commando worried about a boss when we got this we’re going to be alright now next day rolls around and here we go back to the book around ten hundred the Germans shelled the battalion heavily but they didn’t follow up follow this up with an attack by eleven hundred the wounded had all been evacuated and the wire lines had been relayed to the regiment the major instructed grim zl– to collect all five company commanders and meet him as soon as possible at the crossroads of the edge of the woods from which they had first attacked it was only a little way from the regimental command post to the edge of the woods he got there well before the others they came up a few minutes later he missed Newcombe before he caught the meaning of their odd manner grim cells set face should have given him a hint as the S to step forward saluted very stiffly and said with visible effort to keep his emotions under control sir I must report that captain Newcomb is dead the others look silently at the ground and tears begin to stream down the gentle grim cells face the news struck the major with the force of a physical blow of all the fine men he had met since taking command of the battalion Newcomb had been one of the very best he was quick willing and intelligent wise far beyond his 24 25 years he also stared at the ground for a moment and then asked quietly how did it happen Ryan spoke up same sniper same place as the doc so a doc had been killed earlier by a sniper one of my men warned nuke to stay out of that gap in the hedgerow but he took the steel part of his helmet off and sat down on it right square in the gap itself the sergeant who thought the captain must have gone nuts all of a sudden was coming after him to drag him away but too late the sniper got him right in the temple John Feldmann numb inside but to dwell on his sorrow wouldn’t help nodding solemnly he leveled his finger at captain Weddell you are now lagoon red three but you we retain command of your company until we complete the move into these woods rental equally grave replied yes sir I have a little news – we kind of chadwick got half his helmet knocked off by a burp gun during all that shooting a while ago he caught either a part of his helmet or some of the slugs in his arm he’s out but he isn’t hurt badly he’ll be back major Jones who had never met Chadwick merely nodded again it didn’t hurt so much when you didn’t know the man furthermore a wound regardless of its severity lack the awful finality of death Chadwicks temporary loss meant one less officer whereas new comes death left a hole in his heart although he knew Webber would probably be a good s3 to Newcombe in the four short days he had known him had become a friend grim soul had moved a little way from the others he was leaning against a tree his head down in the curve of his arms sobs shaking his body he and Newcombe and become close friends for years and had worked together daily the major spoke to captain Menzer the headquarters company commander see the lieutenant grim Zola’s pulled off somewhere where it’s quiet and given a chance to lie down and get some rest if he objects tell him it’s an order I don’t want to see him around any more today men sir small and dapper saluted sharply yes sir I’ll look after George all right these guys are taking casualties at just an incredible amount and you know you see a couple things in here that we’ve heard before you know you see the major realizing that that grim zl– he’s done he needs a break and you know he says get him off the line get him somewhere he can take a break and you also see these guys filling billets and just getting promoted you know battlefield promoted the guy was one of the company commanders Weddell he becomes the he becomes the operations officer boom on the spot it’s it’s really you can see why this bloke was one hack words favorite books so now they’re there hold up for a while and here we go back to book ten days dragged by while the battalion sat in Boyd of rattle if the days were sometimes dull they were rarely uneventful men were wounded or killed nearly every day by artillery mortars or the fire from self prepared it propelled eighty eight’s that could move unseen into positions from which they could fire into the tops of trees of the BLA and then pull back before the artillery men could bring fire on them those casualties were bad enough but they were to be expected there was one incident that the battalion commander thought they could have got along very nicely without regimen had directed that the battalions erect barbed wire along their whole front which they did cheerfully but when a truckload of anti-personnel mines came down the major looked at them with misgivings those things were as dangerous to the people who laid them as those as they were to the enemy he thought so he supervised the mine lane carefully meticulously noting the location of each mine on a large scale sketch of the area being mined the day after all the mines were laid he heard the flat multiple muffled roar a landmine that once he ran toward the sound he got there with the aid men to watch with sorrow and anger while they evacuated three men from the middle of their own minefield one of them was dead the last litter carried Iberian who badly hit in the legs with several fragments did not know how severely he was hurt the other wounded men unconscious was being placed on the medical Jeep when still another litter came around the corner of the little farmhouse that stood on the edge of the woods the man on this litter had his eyes closed his face twisting horribly he jerked over he jerked all over bringing his legs up so hard the eight men had to hold him down on the litter the major looking at the man and wonder asked what’s the matter with him da men were contemptuous ah said one this guy never got hit by nothing he was in the hole fifty yards from where it happened but he started screaming and yelling and carrying on something awful we thought he was hit but he ain’t got a hole in him he was like this when we got to him jon’s realized he had just seen his first case of neuro psychosis commonly called combat exhaustion or c/e it wasn’t the only one he was to see so you got that why I guess that’s that friendly fire friendly fire when you hit one of your own landmines nightmare now and also you start seeing some some psychological damage to guys on the front line and you know that guy’s not gonna be any good he can’t fight he’s literally screaming and jerking around they have to hold him down all right now the battalion is going to move in and take over a whole area from the 3rd Armored Division and it’s in moving into this area it’s got 300 replacements coming in so something about that but I’m supposed to be 900 people and they’re getting 300 replacements so that tells you and again I am breathing I’m skipping I’m not even breathing about not breathing – I’m skipping so much of the fighting and combat in this book but it’s just going on continuously and at this point they’re going in they have they already have 300 replacements so they’ve had 300 people you know taken out or or either either wounded or killed so at this point lieutenant Ryan s company is on a patrol and they’re going to go set up an outpost into some pretty pretty rough area and as the patrols out there here we go then came the first shots from the Patrol they’re going in well and it looked for a few seconds as if Ryan was going to get to his outpost but a flare of three red star clusters floated up from the German lines and all hell broke loose again every kraut gun that had been used to help stop the 3rd armored plus probably a few that had come in late opened up on about a hundred and fifty yards of eight of the able company front it was concentrated thunderous murder such as no one in the battalion ever seen before Ryan’s line was a massive seething leaping flame that looked as if it were fed from below rather than from an inconceivable torrent of shells that came on and on and on the barrage switched suddenly from the company to the battalion command post area itself the battalion commander and his staff hearing the first whine of the shells dived for the new command post hole with a huddled walk while the walls shuttered and dirt rain down from the roof concussion blew out the candles but nobody was hurt the German Gunners switched to see company for a few rounds then right went right back to their prime target able company while they were pounding Kenny’s company a single short call came in over the 300 which is their radio able six is clipped that meant Ryan had been hit but there were no details 20 minutes after that pretty red star cluster went up all was quiet again except for some moans and cries for medics that floated back from able company but at least no German infantry had come in under fire in the 20 in that 20 minutes the company lost 54 men plus its company commander almost every man in the Patrol had been caught above ground and was killed or wounded while most of the other casualties came from tree and hedgerow bursts that sent fragments down into the holes the men of the command post group gathered around the hole silently watched the parade of walking wounded that filed slowly by on the way to the aid station occasionally a man would stumble or waver whereupon a messenger a wire man would jump to help him every aid man and litter in the battalion was already up at the able line and the first litters were not far behind the walking wounded some of the victims moaned and a few cried out a little now and then but most were very quiet Jones was glad he could not see their faces in the dark the last letter went by with no word from Ryan Jones was beginning to hope he hadn’t been hurt badly when four men loomed out of the darkness each carrying a corner of a blanket Ryan was half sitting half lying in the makeshift litter gritting his teeth at the pain of the wounds in an arm and a leg they laid the blanket down gently in front of the major who stripped off his coat and laid it over the company commander Ryan managed to work up a feeble grin it didn’t work too good did it boss that’s you know when you’re the company when you’re the battalion commander and you come up with a plan with a company commander and you think you’ve got everything right and you use fifty four guys in a company in 20 minutes and your company commander comes back and says it didn’t go too good did it boss to have you wait now they do end up pushing forward to get some ground and he’s out checking and you’re gonna find this out and he talks about it but he goes forward to find out what’s going on and make sure the guys see him and at one point he’s checking an outpost a little outpost where they’re guarding this certain area and all the guys in the group are focused on a tank an old burned-out tank that’s out there in front of them and he comes up to them and here we go back to the book John’s pointed to the corner does it take all three you to watch that tank while the whole German army could crawl up to within ten feet of you without knowing it the sergeant’s mouth dropped open god major I never even thought about it after they shot at us from the tank last time well you better damn straight start thinking about your flanks if you want it if you want to end up being able to think at all I wouldn’t give a damn if they knocked all three you stupid bastards out but if they got you they’d have a good chance of getting into the middle of your company and I wouldn’t like that now damn you start thinking again you know what he’s detached those guys just got shot at from those two that tank they’re not worried about their flank they’re worried about that tank another sniper being in there another machine gunner sneaking up into it so he’s attached he rolls up and sees hey I see the gear focused on the tank but you can’t you’ve got to keep thinking going back to book orders came down during the night directing Lagoon read major John’s first battalion 115 Infantry Regiment would relieve lemon red by midnight of the following day lemon was code named for the hundred and sixteenth who’s read first battalion was holding the line to the left where Lagoon red had hopped off nearly three weeks before so they’re going up to relieve and and hold the line they’re going up to to take positions and hold them meeting the commander of this this group they’re taking the place of back the book the big commander to introducing himself shook hands all around then he took a deep breath and started in on a careful detailed briefing fellows he said this is a hot spot I know you’ve all been in hot lots of them before but please take my word for it this one is really hot he paused and looked at the officers as if to make sure they were going to take his word for it then he went on we’ve got Nazi paratroopers on the other side of the hedgerows they’re the best that Hitler has and they know it they don’t give us much rest we don’t give them any we have casualties every day so please do your best not to cause any more than we have to take anyway my boys have been here for two weeks now and they’re getting right touchy so if any of you get snapped that don’t take don’t pay attention to it just go on and they’ll get over it so that this guys guys are pretty burnout at this point and they do this they do this turn over and he goes out and again the turnover happens there’s more combat there’s more casualties and then he’s going out but they had things settled down and he’s going out to check the line and here we go back to look as usual major John’s asked a number of men how they were getting along he got a won’t answer that surprise to my sergeant said well sir everything’s okay it’s a tough spot but I figure we’re as good as any other outfit hold it down and somebody’s got to do it but I sure wish the major would get around and see us more often does the men a world of good to see you down here in the lines the major who had fought he was getting around about as often as any battalion commander should we’re seriously concerned because this sergeant didn’t seem to think so instead of being annoyed he was pleased that the man had the uncommon guts to say what he thought whether or not he was right so there you go battalion commander instead of getting all mad this sergeant says something he’s actually thankful he answered okay Sarge you’ll see me around a lot more in the future the sergeant saluted sharply whereupon stone this is new company commander stone and the major went on stone trying to stammer out an apology for the brash sergeant Johns cut him off but not before stone had volunteered the statement that he himself thought the major got around more than any other battalion commander he’d ever seen the fact that stone had not seen any battalion commanders did not escape Jones who smiled to himself as the company commander lapsed into an embarrassed silence on the way back to battalion he reviewed his own approach to the problem of leadership he knew that he must prove himself especially his courage to every man in the outfit if he expected to get the maximum from them he felt that he had done so fairly effectively as far as seed company was concerned because he stayed with them that night for the counter-attack that had threatened their left flank also his personal intelligence service told him that a company had approved the little battle he and grim soul and Martin had had with the machine gun that had killed Jimmy and Sadler so he’s got his own like notice that his personal intelligence service that means he’s not I’ve talked about this before with him you got your own guys that are telling you what’s going on so his own little guys had told them that a company they respected him they knew he was going to get after it back to the book but it was apparent that this is going to be a company by company proposition Baker company didn’t seem to be impressed he’d have to do something about that now this is just another thing about leadership there he’s on the field phone and again I talked about how to put these wires in and he’s on a field phone and he gets done making something happen on the field phone it puts down the phone on the table the phone rang before anyone could say anything John’s picked it up barking red six that’s his callsign the operators voice came through clearly are you finished yes I am he slammed it back on the table Wendell shook his head you forgot to ring off major sergeant Wilson gives the operators hello fail make sure the lines are clear sergeant Wilson was the acting Communications Officer the original man had been killed and Wilson was doing a fine job he’d been in for a commission for quite a while John’s picked up the phone and twisted the crank on the leather case the operator answered instantly yes sir what’s your name operator private Henderson sir the voice was a little uncertain okay private Henderson you keep doing your job the way you’re supposed to don’t mind me if I snap at you once in a while I’m sorry he finished he started to lay the phone down smiled picked it up and added finished so again you can see he’s a guy that doesn’t get all crazy when when you know when people come to him and say hey you’re supposed to sign off the line I got to keep these lines open you’re not signing off the line are you done you see egomaniac leaders do that get crazy on stupid stuff they’re not following their own rules now talking about this network talking about these communications here we go back to the FISC this network of communications enabled three men to keep accurate minute by minute track of all that was going over on the entire front covered by nearly six hundred men from this one spot they could direct the lives of all those men actors in the most thrilling and awful drama of all time so the way that they’re doing this and I should have explained this earlier is you have the the battalion commander and he has a small staff of people that stay with him most of the time his operations officer his communications officer his intelligence officer and what they do is when they get to certain positions they find a command post a CP and when they’re in the field what they do is they dig a big giant foxhole and they make it as good as they can they put logs over the top of it they put dirt on top of that or sandbags or something so they’re pretty they they’re trying to get pretty secure in there from overhead artillery attacks and then they run wires out to set up communications with all these all the company commanders who have their own little command posts and obviously this thing isn’t permanent because it has to be mobile because tomorrow night the next night we might move another thousand yards or five hundred yards and then that that foxhole that we drug in doing us any good anymore but from this little command post that they set up there they’re running this whole show now he talks about his decision-making here back to the book if he made a wrong decision he could cause men to lose lose their lives needlessly or if he was clever or lucky he might by moving a single squad or platoon or calling for fire support defeat the enemy and gain additional glory for the unit all without moving from his communications when in a defensive position such as this then he’s talking here about like some of that drama that happens back to the book a single rifle shot could mean the death of a company commander or it could mean nothing a mortar round might wipe out an outpost and lay a company open to a surprise attack or it might only kick up a little dust and scar a few trees volley of all artillery fire could come through the roof over their heads or it could burst harmlessly in the fields outside a burst of fire from the orchard could mean another Pig because they had killed some pigs that they follow hitting me or a full-scale German attack each sound built up a certain amount of suspense to greater or lesser degree the ring of the phone itself built the tension higher and higher until the first words that came in would perhaps screw it even tighter or dispel it entirely so that’s the life that they’re living and just high pressure all the time but you know you hear a massive explosion and that’s the same thing I think life was talking about on the podcast you know Udyr an explosion you have no idea what it is you don’t know if it’s friendly you don’t know if it’s a tank round being fired you know if it’s an IUD going off you don’t know if it’s a a mortar round impact knee kick it may be maybe these guys got to a point where they could tell the difference but I’ll tell you what you get into urban combat and there’s the sound is refracting off all the buildings it’s hard to tell where it came from and it’s definitely hard to tell what it is and by the way the artillery rounds that hit our waters being used as IEDs mmm so you don’t know what it is yeah it’s really hard to tell but it was weird – in Ramadi there was constant gunfire like you when you went outside you just hear pop is always out there you know even if it was even is on the other side of the city I mean you you can even out the other side of city but if it was in downtown Ramadi and we were back at our base you know we’d go up on the rooftop of my building and sit there and you could just want tracers all night you know the Marines down in the government Center were getting attacked for the 14th night in a row you know the outpost the the army soldiers our camp Corregidor was getting mortared I mean it was just constantly happening so what was it where you if it’s closer that’s when it’s the concern I have yeah doesn’t context in general know just yeah this the overall context would for us for me it was like okay you know you just you just knew that there was constant fight again Kylie was going on yes and yeah I mean obviously if it was closer than the louder it is and the closer it is the more of a concern yeah certainly now he talks about again this is a subject we hear about all the time the German mortars and Gunners must have registered too because they had the exact range of every foot of hedgerow held by the battalion on the 10th of July they covered almost every foot of the hedgerow that sort of gunnery was rough on the men they never knew in the first round would fall but once it had splattered with its flat crash they all knew that six or maybe a dozen more were coming each one a little further up or down the hedgerow when you heard that first one you pulled the bottom of your foxhole right up to your belly and prayed when you heard the second one you knew whether or not they were coming your way if they were coming towards you it got right rough each round was a little closer and they were so damn deliberate about it that the waiting was worth worse than the crash of the shell itself you lay there and counted the seconds between the shells until you knew that the next one was yours the twenty seconds or so was the longest one in the world because you never knew if you were safe until the shell hit it could hit anywhere outside your hole even a matter of inches and you were okay if it hit in the hole with you you’d never know it of course actually only a few shells ever made direct hits on foxholes but some did and nearly every man had seen a foxhole that had been hit there was always the little tail fin section left on the surface and after the litter bearers had come and gone there was only a pool of dark muck to show that somebody had been in the hole it happened twice that day so this one you can know if you quite followed what’s happening these guys are in a hedgerow so when they’re in a linear position right and the way you work mortars is you make small adjustments on them and and the way that you fire at targets when you don’t know what the distance is you put the first one is going to be long and then you you adjust a lot shorter so then you come back and it’s called bracketing so you you know you might come back five clicks and then that was now you’re now you’re hit in front of the target now you go back now you go forward again four clicks it hits a little behind the target now you come back three two one and then boom you hit your target on the mortar thing there’s like the actual tool that kind of welders do your adjusting the elevation yeah yes so this is like a little guy up and down a little dial it’s going up and down to two of them fire at what angle you want to find that so what you do is when you shoot a mortar you you the first one you go long the second one you estimate short and then you basically can split the difference between those two now you’re going to be pretty close and like you work with a legit mortar team and the third round is going to be moving the hand a lot on yeah but what are you saying here is the Germans they already knew the exact settings for where to put like a we see movement at this part of the hedgerow they don’t need to take beta just go there pre-designated said it yes they can put around right on that so they kind of figured it out before I figured out beforehand they know the exact because watching which you have to you know the distance yeah you know the distance that the mortar shoots at a certain elevation but what they don’t know is if you’re trying to shoot it something that you don’t know exactly where it is well then you have to estimate the distance which is a little bit challenging to do now a good sniper or a good mortarman are gonna be pretty close you know snipers know that a this thing they get it down to really you know how many meters it is and same thing with a good mortar but but even that you know when you’re talking about a far distance of 800 thousand meters you might be off by 50 meters and that’s that you know being off by 50 meters of the mortar is a big distance not going to kill the target that you’re trying to hit but with these Germans at this point they already have everything measured and dialed they have a range card is what we call it a range card means like I know exactly when you set up in a position you could have your rangefinder and you find out what the range and distance of everything that you’re looking at so you know exactly how far dust you can dial in your scope boom oh I see somebody over at that corner that building that’s 832 meters boom crack remember that game battleship remember that I do remember that look yeah like you can’t see it but yeah and your I forgot a little bit it is your basically your first round is going to be a little bit if you hit something then you gotta do like a jaw closed yeah so what the Germans like I said the Germans had these things pre-registered and then what they would do is they would just drop they would just hit the whole hedgerow they live down the line and these guys knew that once the first round goes it’s you’re gonna move in away from me on the hedgerow or toward me oh yeah yeah and so can you imagine the the damn pressure when you’re sitting there that first round goes and now the next round is gonna be further away from me meaning the Germans are going to dialing away from me right or they dialing towards me and then how many rounds are they going to go because if they do enough rounds you’re you’re going to be all right yeah that’s our you’re not there the game that’s exactly what the huh and what’s interesting is those like you said if this if the mortar hits outside of your foxhole by an inch you’re probably going to be okay because the mortar blast goes up and out when it hit the ground if it gets in your foxhole you’re dead and so there’s this this kind of randomness that you’re dealing with all right going back to the book a little after this after 1700 general gearheart came striding through the trees behind the company post hole he came on serious business that of giving orders for an attack if he carried them by himself they were important gentlemen he said with the edge to his voice that was impressive the division attacks tomorrow at 0 600 all along the line this is the drive for saint-lo there were few details of italians what attack the general would set at zero 600 the first battalion would advance in a southwesterly direction with the village of belfontaine as its initial objective that was about all there was to it except for the usual information concerning artillery support supplies location of regimental command post and that sort of thing so pretty pretty broad orders like 8 is we’re going to do or in fact tomorrow 0 600 the mission is to get staying low back to the book by the time the order got down to the platoon leaders in their part their part was pretty simple all they in turn had to say was all right gang let’s take the next hedgerow when the company commanders had gone the staff discussed the plan of attack the question bothering Jones most of all was where to put the advanced command post group he wanted to hold casualties to the barest minimum yet he wanted to be as far forward as possible so he’s talking about where should he actually position himself and his small team of the kalian staff where should they position himself 22 because when we talk about battalion staff here you talk about a battalion sack to be pretty big when you’re in a big battalion but this is not a big group this small group especially because they’ve taken so many casualties back to the book there were a number of good reasons for this in the first place keeping the command group close to the companies made a lot of difference in communications particularly in this close wooded country a clump of heavy trees or a high hedgerow could spell the margin between having contact and not having it that was a supreme importance second if he had this is why I was talking about keeping the plan simple because when you start getting split for people and you can’t maintain communications with them the difference between not having communications and having communications is is night and day it’s disaster and success it’s victory and defeat back to the book second if you had to move a bog if you had to move to a bogged down company or to any trouble spot you wanted to have the shortest possible distance to go so it wants to be close enough to have good communications he also wants to be close enough that if something’s going wrong you can get and make things happen third the group couldn’t afford to stay far behind in any event because they fully expected the german paratroopers to close in around them as soon as they started to advance if the command post group were too far from the rifle companies it would have a good chance of getting cut off and destroyed or captured then there was always the consideration that the men like to know that the old man was not far behind and to see him once in a while when the stuff was flying around so these are things he’s considering they’re getting ready you know it’s now getting closer to the attack back in the book the staff was uneasy they didn’t want to turn in they couldn’t say why there had been other nights like this they all sense that everyone shared their own nameless fears now they start their movement suddenly a terrific firing broke out every German cannon more ger rifle and machine gun that had fired around that day cut loose simultaneously the sound of mortars coughing on the German side blended with the scream of incoming shells grim salon Hoffmann slid down the steps of the hole before the first rounds hit the phone rang major John’s grabbed it red 6 charlie sixer we’re catching hell down here with mortars and artillery I think me I think there’s enemy infantry coming in under the fire so the idea is cover and move you you do this as an infantry platoon or company or battalion you put suppressive fire so you start launching mortars at your enemy and then while they’re all taking cover you advance mmm and so that’s what he’s talking about he says I think there’s enemy infantry coming in under the fire stone broke in the operator having wisely sensed the crisis and cut him into the circuit so the other company commander now tunes in same here major only I know there’s infantry coming in they’re already in the road with us so there’s about to get some his voice and manner were normally extremely quiet and easygoing now his tone was strident with urgency had it been anyone but Julien snowin and major might have thought it showed near panic okay the both of you he answered as calmly as he could stuffs coming in here to fight him and keep me informed major Jones doesn’t get excited about stuff very often he says oh you’re getting attacked cool fight him keep me informed yes that that that’s how you eat yeah now at some point all the wires that I talked about that we’re so important for communication the crowd back at the aid station they had a cat they captured a guy cried Wendell suddenly he must have been part of patrol that came through and caught all our wires hell there hasn’t been enough shells took fairly falling to cut them all the smart bastards they even knew when we checked radios as well so these guys said a small group of Germans went through the lines probably right after a radio check call all the wires yeah that’s that’s how you kick off a an attack right you screw up their communications now at this point they are this is turning bad real bad and and this is again there’s so much great information in here and so such good documentation of the way this combat takes place but at suffice it to say at this point I’m skipping forward they are getting really crushed and they got mass casualties they are there when they advance so imagine this remember I talked about the Germans know exactly where their mortgages are going to hit well the Americans will storm forward and fight hard and get to another hedgerow when they get to this new hedgerow where the Germans were where they just beat the Germans out of there the Germans have that hedgerow dialed as well so so now as soon as they get positioned they start getting immediate effective fire from mortars yeah total nightmare and that’s what’s happening and at this point they’re completely bogged down and this might be you don’t get to hear a story like this very often so the regimental executive Colonel Smith Lieutenant Colonel Smith shows up so above the chain of command of the battalion is the regiment and the the senior person in the regiment is the colonel the regimental commander and this is his executive the person one down from the regimental commander is this guy we kind of Lieutenant Colonel Smith and he shows up and here’s what he says what’s the matter Jones why aren’t you getting anywhere Smith gasped miss cookies gasping he’s running into this position the major point into the bloody trail does the dead men to the shells that were savaging the trees and finally in the direction of the nearby front from which came the plotting sound of mortar fire his eyes were lacking their usual snap and he answered dully they’re too tough Smith blinked several times he was obviously trying to think of something to say something that would inspire this listless battalion commander to new effort well he finally brought out you got to get going right away regimen has got a move you just got to get going Jones shook his head he wasn’t having any not today was all he would say so we’re talking mentally defeated at this point and even the the regimental commander coming in or the regimental executive commander coming in telling him hey you got to move he just got to go which is that that encouragement this reminds me of in jujitsu tournaments you ever see a coach saying like you got to get on top yeah you got to do something you’ve got to get out of there yeah that doesn’t help me yeah so that’s what he’s saying hey you just got to go I’m getting mortared my guys are getting mowed down I’m not I can’t do it so back to the book then for some reason both men looked up the hedgerow toward the rear colonel McDaniel the new division chief of staff was riding toward them oblivious of the fire just as he reached the command post a volley of four rounds screamed in the field just beyond the hedgerow the concussion tumbled him into the hole with the major and Smith but McDaniel did not lose his natural dignity and he was smiling as he said hello Jones Smith how we doing now yet a leader coming in that’s very calm and very cool and just got blasted into their hole by the way yeah and he looks up smiles and says how we doing Jones made an effort to perk up a bit but his voice lacked conviction or forces you told McDaniel all about the situation the chief of staff surveyed the scene weighing it all very carefully before he answered when he did his tone was serious and he was not smiling Jones when you were on maneuvers in Louisiana or at VMI and while you were studying at Leavenworth you saw situations where units had to be sacrificed knowingly in order to get a job done didn’t you the battalion commander nodded when you saw those things you probably never thought very much about them just accepted them as a matter of course in war didn’t you the major nodded again you never stopped to think probably that there might come a time when you and your unit would be the one that had to be sacrificed to enable the parent unit to accomplish its mission the majors eyes were opening wider as he shook his head well I don’t know for sure but maybe this is that time I do know that this is the highest ground on the Corps front and the key to the entire defense is saying low corks best expects us to break it and we think you are the man to do the job at whatever cost now don’t let us down without another word he got to his feet and walked back the way he had come the regimental executive tagged after him Jones watched them go suddenly he remembered that the general what the general had said to him the day before I’m counting on you he turned the Weddell who had watched this little drama with detached interest Leroy the major said is he squared his shoulders and pointed to the sinking Sun take a damn good look at that son old boy because it’s probably the last time any of us will ever see it let’s go John’s never knew later just what he did the rest of that afternoon and early evening he remembered moving around the command post forward again and he knew that he had needled the company commanders unmercifully threatening them or with relief of their commands begging pleading anything he could think of that would work with that individual at that moment he found that there was a comparatively weak spot in the German lines opposite Baker again he badgered Martin into persuading the artillery to give him all the fire that he could hit that spot at one time that meant a lot of guns when they all fired three rounds as fast as the Gunners could load them a hundred yards of german-held hedgerow went up in flame and smoke and dust again most of Baker company streamed across the field and into the gap blasted by the artillery that took the heart out of the paratroopers and the paratroopers he’s talking about our german paratroopers who began to fall back all along the line it was no route the Germans retired from their flanking threat Baker posed having gained a place in their main line but they fell back slowly fighting every foot of the way the tenacious paratroopers slowed the week weekend battalion again but they could not stop it entirely the company commanders and the platoon leaders together with metallian CEO had thrown off their apathy taken a second wind and were not to be denied at dark thanks to the inspired leadership that had been provided in a few short minutes by Colonel McDaniel the German line was broken beyond repair the battered American battalion had made 500 bloody yards as dusk faded into darkness the firing began to diminish only to flare briefly again on the left then it died away into silence can he called in Kenny called in to say there had been a light counter-attack on the left flank he had easily kicked it off the major did not ask for permission to halt the advance he gave orders to dig in for the night after he was sure the companies had close contact on their flanks so there you go that that’s that’s just an amazing account of not only of either ship but if what leadership was capable of I mean John’s was pretty much done he’s literally saying not today they’re too tough and the way that Nick McDaniel convinces him and explains to him that you know those times those times when you were doing exercises and you they’d sacrifice a unit so they can accomplish the mission I’m not sure but I think you’re that unit right now and we’re counting on you to get it done unbelievable you know that’s uh that’s one of those things to work that’s where your that’s where you know from a leadership perspective you are now you know entering a situation where Duty is going to be the most important thing to you and you also know that the mission is the most important thing you’ve got it you’ve got to put that at the top of your priorities and you know you’re going to sacrifice guys and it’s going to be a nightmare but the alternative the alternative is you’re not going to win you’re going you’re not going to win that’s the alternative is that your team is not going to be able to achieve this and and you know at this point in the war this war was not settled yet by any stretch this war was not settled and so to give up ground and start to let the Germans reorganize and let them start to gain high ground which is what they were fighting for here that’s not just going to affect your mind it’s going to affect everybody and so I’ve said this on the podcast before the definition of a team is when the members of the team think the team is more important than themselves and that’s what you see right here they realize John’s realize realizes that look we’re going to be and the title the book is clay pigeons you know a clay pigeon is right yes that’s what you throw up in the air and shoot ad and it’s just it’s a sacrificial piece of clay and that’s why the name of the book is the clay pigeon to say no because that’s in many cases the situation that they’re in so this is this is different then when Napoleon says hey if you get told to do something and it’s not smart and you do it anyways you’re culpable John’s he can’t say look no this isn’t smart he knows it’s the right thing to do he that’s that’s the big difference that I’m trying to get at here this isn’t a guy who’s saying look hey we’re gonna charge this machine-gun nest and I’m gonna lose it you know half my platoon but it’s not going to make any big deal and I’m a bad leader because I sacrificed my platoon for a meaningless machine-gun nest this is a guy that knows that this objective is important knows that this high ground is needed knows that the the success of this not just this mission but the success of this hope this whole assaults on France and there by Germany is riding on what they’re doing now you could break it down and say well you know that made they could hold back and they could wait well what happens when you hold back and wait do the Germans have me more reinforcements that they’re sending their way you know what what does that actually mean and so he is calculated in his mind you know what we need to do this for the good of everyone we need to do this at one point now fast-forwarding past some more of that fighting they do a good job of kind of of they’ve knocked out some of the through through some fierce fighting they’ve knocked out they’ve moved forward and they’ve hold up and now they start advancing again and here we go back to the book one one well-placed stubborn hostile machine-gun stop that flank attack cold so they’re attacking and they get stopped by one well-placed machine-gun the German gunner got off got half of a small squad that tried to rush him through the smoke and the attackers had to withdraw dragging their wounded with them mortars and artillery left the German undamaged rifle grenades couldn’t quite hit the narrow slit through which he was firing two grenadiers is trying to take extra careful aim had also been hit by concealed German snipers when the major arrived it looked as though progress had stopped using the battalion radio to the rear command post and the artillery phone from there he adjusted 18 successive rounds from one gun of the 110 field artillery battalion in a vain attempt to sharp shoot the machine gun out of the existence but he couldn’t hit it and after each round burst on or near the hedgerow the enemy would reply with a derisive burst there was only one answer a tank and miraculously a tank appeared so that’s what I’m talking about he tries with there’s a one machine gun that’s holding up this situation he gets on the radio and car psaltery artillery which is similar to mortars they’re bigger and more powerful but it’s the same thing it’s indirect fire you’re putting rounds far up in the air and then turn through a big arc that’s going thousands and thousands of feet in some cases in the air and then coming basically straight down on a target and it’s when I say it’s hard to hit a target Keys fires 18 rounds to try and hit this machine gun bunker – machine gun can’t stop it can’t help it so he need to tank and miraculously and and if you don’t know anything about my incredible affection for tanks and for tankers because of what they were able to do in the battle Ramadi – not only for themselves but to support and save my guys time and time again I’m a big fan of Tanks fact I love tanks ten tankers just straight up that’s the way it is and this is why this is why right here back to the book one steel monster monster lumbered up behind Jon’s who yelled instructions to the tank commander the gunner watched carefully while an infantry squad leader fired a clip of tracer bullets at the slit that hid the machine gun and then swung a shortboard barreled little 75 into line it crashed once and almost simultaneously with the muzzle blast came the crack of white phosphorus shell as it hit the slit the smoke blossomed up from behind a hedgerow indicating a direct hit with that a single paratrooper came running toward them a few moments later everything on the front cut loose the enemy and the company charged and another hundred yards of French real estate had changed hands then in the major the major wished every machine gunner and his outfit could have seen that position as an illustration of what skill tenacity and guts could do to build and defend one machine gun position so machine gunners tanks yeah it’s credible what a machine I mean even you know the machine gun is right I mean machine gun there I mean uh normal like a mark 48 machine gunner the old m60 Roger Hayden talked about carrying the 60 right and in our boys last to point my last deployment Ramadi guys are carrying mark 48 or mark 46 which is a smaller round of five five six round m60 that’s what Rambo had right that is no one has yes yes and commando by the way first okay I’ll take your words out a matrix to be exact knows is me okay be m60 sure the Bello said machine gun tell yeah they’re not that big of a weapon I mean it’s big and blood should believe me when you’re carrying 800 mm rounds it’s big enough but if you think about a whole you know a battalion worth of guys are getting stopped by a guy in a machine gun yeah yeah good position now he had snipers snipers covering him – snipers apparently were covering him but that’s that’s that’s not many people that’s why when you’re on the offense you need more people than being in a defense position you know ad even when you’re in a defend defensive position and you’re allowed to use time to set up that’s why when you go back to what when you look at normally we look at this hole if you look at world war ii as a whole the both the the Allies and what we did in in Normandy taking the beaches and what you did every time in a Pacific taking the beaches you’re going against bunkered positions like this yeah and it’s just incredible the tenacity that it takes to make this happen yeah it isn’t that the whole in a way the whole idea behind guerrilla warfare where it’s like we’re just we’re kind of we’re not fighting without fighting and then all of our fighting and then we’re not for that that is that that is behind a guerrilla warfare but this isn’t guerrilla warfare yeah even without the even without sneaking around right right you got your the uniform soldier German and you go okay I’m going to set up a bunker position on this high ground eight where I have the enemy channelized in this area and I have good spread on them and the only weak spots I’ve got I’m recovering with snipers yeah three people holding up a battalion and just think you know if then once you get that position we have mortars already dialed in when you get there that are going to start hitting you and then the next thing you do is you’ve got to move again well guess what we got another three four five guys in machine gun positions new to supporting each other that’s why this this these American allied fighting forces and the Americans here and the Americans in the Pacific going against hardened bunkered positions is incredible it’s incredible now he’s given kind of an overview of war and and here we go thus goes battle a rush a pause some creeping a few isolated shots here and there some artillery fire some orders some smoke more creeping another pause dead silence more firing a great concentration of fire followed by a concerted rush then the whole process starts all over again the defender this is just as good information the defender will almost always hold out some reserve even though his front line is being torn to bits at least he should he may inflict all the damage on the attacker that he can while giving ground slowly then when he thinks the attacker is weakening or when the defense has reached a certain piece of ground that the defender has chosen for the purpose he launches a counter-attack with his reserves the attacker has used much of his strength his men are tired probably short of ammunition and are almost inevitably somewhat disorganized then the defender throws fresh troops into a counter-attack over ground his men know unless the attackers are very strong they must inevitably suffer often then they are defeated and thrown back or destroyed so there you go I mean this happens and mixed martial arts it happens in sports it happens on the battlefield these guys are pushing forward on the attack and you take away leave you chip away at them a little bit you give them ground you give them ground and then when they when they get spread out they’re low on ammunition boom then you hit him on a counter-attack on the ground that you already know back to the book such counter-attack tactics have been standard almost as long as there have been organized armies the Germans employed them so regularly that they were never a surprise but the inner enemy could never muster seem to muster the strength necessary to make their counter-attack stick their efforts often halted in advance as they had the night before but they rarely gained back any ground and were almost always costly to the counter attackers even the best and most proven tactics still require judgment and the force to do the job the Germans rarely enough of either so there’s a little breakdown on what’s happening with the Germans first of all they’re not using a judgement they’re just like standard operating procedure we’re going to counter-attack every single time and we counter Zac you’re taking losses especially for not gaining ground so their standard operating procedure we’re in a counter-attack and they’re not gaining ground and so what they doing they’re losing guys and the more guys you lose the less guys you have to counter-attack with for the next time yeah now they had a they had a group here that was working in the battalion they were called the commandos it was just like a little elite group that they were using they would guard the command post but then they would also when someone’s going down they’d get out there and after super aggressive but they were running so low on people that they needed to put the commandos team back out into the companies the regular companies so there have been a little commando you in a little special unit within the battalion and then they had to take those guys and put them back out with the with the regular companies now here we go back to the book in the middle of the afternoon the CEO moved up close behind a company to watch their contingent of former battalion commandos go into the line sergeant Turner who had made it who had been in charge of the platoon of the commando platoon was with them seeing the major he fell behind long enough to say sir we’re going in there to help our buddies from old a company linked the hell out of those bastards but when we get through this I’d sure like to come back and get another bunch of commandos for the battalion his cool voice ended on a rising note alright sergeant you get us into saint-lo and I’ll promise you you get another platoon of your hellraisers just as soon as we can spare them from the company’s John’s return to the sergeants John’s returned the sergeant salutes and watched the man as he ran to catch up with the others an hour later a weasel which is a small purpose tracked vehicle flying a Red Cross flag clattered out of the woods carrying a load of wounded on litters the battalion commander who is passing the spot stops when he saw the wounded the little commando sergeant lay on the litter on the near side seeing the major he yelled for the driver to stop Jones went over to him and the boy both his legs wrapped in dirty bloody bandages grabbed his commanders shirt and pulled himself up on the litter he was crying openly and unashamedly as he burst out with a flood of invective they got all my boys nature we didn’t get off the LD which is the line of departure I let you down major I let you down he stopped and sobbed bitterly before he could go on major Jones could feel his own throat constricting as he held the tightly gripping hands that shook him again and again as the sergeant poured out his grief and rage and disappointment we had to get that gun damn the dirty bastards god damn god damn I let him get me with a fucking machine gun and they got all my boys to goddamn he sobbed uncontrollably while the weasel driver began to let his clutch take hold but I’ll be back major sir I’ll be back I’ll be back sure boy and I’ll have your old job for you anytime you just take it easy and get those legs fixed the major was walking slowly beside the litter trying to gently disengage the grip on his shirt the sergeant let go and fell back on the litter exhausted Jones looked up at the aid man who slowly shook his head the sergeant would not be back now they are finally pushing into saint-lo and and they have to go down this or the direction of attack that they’re taking is down this down this single road that heads into saint-lo and the germans have it dialed they have it dialed with range you know with artillery ready to hit it and here we go and they have hit they’re starting to hit it with big rounds back to the book John’s noted that the German fire was coming in slowly there couldn’t have been more than two or three guns firing as they were all big ones they didn’t fire rapidly that was a break but just one of those big shells in the wrong place as the next one began to howl the men began to look for deeper spots in the ditches John’s yelled keep going dammit it’s not here yet the men kept going forward for several more seconds running hard now the shell was nearly on the ground before the major yelled again down although the men hit the ditches John was too excited to remember he was in the middle of the road he went down on one knee the shell burst a hundred yards ahead again nobody was hit the instant burst the major was up yelling let’s go running as he yelled his men got up and ran to Hoffman and Griezmann a grim cell catching the idea moved further back down the line of men to relay commands and call signals on the shells when the next one hit all three officers did the same none of them got off the road here and there non comms without orders began to fill in the gap staying on the road themselves by the time the third shell hit the whole column was working as smoothly as if it had been on a parade ground drill and they were losing no time they kept going a few men were hit but not many oddly oddly enough not an officer or noncom was knocked out of the middle of the road though each leader only went down on one knee one shell burst not twenty four five yards ahead of the major but it hit just around a small bend in the road and he was sheltered by the bank he ran forward through the smoke and dust nearly falling over a man who is rolling crazily half in and half out of the ditch John’s grabbed him by the arm to help him to his feet crying come on boy let’s go the man tried to get up but stumbled awkwardly forward only then did John’s look down and see that the soldier had no feet he was trying valiantly to stand on the stumps of his two legs where his feet had been sliced cleanly off just at the ankles John’s laid him back gently into the ditch and changed his tone maybe you better take it easy wild son you stay here until one of your buddies gets here they’ll be along in a minute the man himself was an aid man and not another was in sight but the battalion commander had no time for one man so after a quick look to see that the stumps were not bleeding profusely he patted the man on the back saying see you later bud then he ran to catch up to his place in the column a little further down the road after another burst he saw another man lying in the ditch not making any move to get up and go although he didn’t seem to be hurt John stopped grabbed him by the arm and yelled again come on let’s get going looking blankly up at him the soldier pushed a camera forward saying plaintively I’m a cameraman this rocked the major for a moment then he said well you can’t take any pictures in that ditch get going so again you see leadership in action you see him having to actually lead and set the example and his other the company commanders and eventually the the senior enlisted guys all follow his lead of what he’s doing we got time to run we got a minute or whatever it is 30 seconds we’re going to get up we’re going to run as hard as we can when we know we’re going to get hit with a shell we’re going to get down and take cover pure leadership now once they get kind of into saint-lo there’s a colonel shows up starts getting told what to do back to the book the Colonel’s giving orders again I want you to clear this town as quickly as you can there aren’t many Germans in it but there are a few and I wanted all clear your battalion is the only infantry we have with the task force as you are the ranking officer you will be in command of all the troops in town they look closely at the major who nodded trying to contain the elation he felt knowing that he would have command on the ground of what would undoubtedly be a historical action the Colonel thrust a map at him here’s a large scale map of the town itself now get going Major John’s turn to look for Wendell Wendell and Graham cyl his two staff officers turned company commanders both were almost at his elbow he drew them to one side and divided the town between them so now they’re kinda on the outskirts of saint-lo and they’re starting to clear the town and we have sudden the companies go out and start clearing the town and they’ve set up a little makeshift command post for four major John’s and and he’s standing there if he’s got he’s got a bunch of new guys with him too he’s got all these replacements because remember an hour and a half ago when I said hey these guys have already had 300 replacements all that has kept up the whole time they’re getting all these replacements so at this point this is an interesting leadership story here he’s got some new guys that show up and there’s he’s standing in his new command post and these new guys he sees like a position that needs to be taken to make sure that you know we have some security around the command post and so here we go he motion to the FC and three other men standing nearby they came forward rifles ready so these are three new guys just replacements just showed up and again the probably the most fire they’ve seen was running into the town of st Louis howitzer shells that are hitting them back to the book see that alley there said John’s pointing I want you to take these three men and go down to the end of it looks like about a hundred yards where you will set up an outpost lieutenant liquor II will come around later to see how you’re doing the PFC squinted down the alley nodded a trifle uncertainly and started toward it the others followed but the major was too preoccupied to note there been no briefing and no assignment of positions or duties they just tripped off down the alley together like a bunch of men going to the post exchange two minutes after they left the sound of German machine-gun fire came from the direction of the narrow passageway John’s turned to look out of the alley pelted the four men straight toward him the private first class panted sir there’s a machine gun down there the battalion commander didn’t know whether to be amused or angry there was no telling what the new men were apt to do if they didn’t have leadership of an experienced or well-trained non-common officer he decided to be gentle yes I heard it now tell you what to do you take these three men again assign one to take a place where he can shoot at the gun or where you think the gun is then take the other two and see if you can’t come around behind it and get it for me so little cover and move there’s a real simple look of remove you you get blue you can shoot the gun have that guy get where you can shoot the gun and then you guys maneuver behind cover move beautiful the PFC took that in nodded somewhat less uncertainty motion to the men to follow him and started purposefully back down the alley and not more than five minutes there came in rapid succession the sound of the machine gun a few rifle shots two grenades and running feet John’s had moved across the street looking for the best place for a temporary command post he turned toward the mouth of the alley wondering what would come out this time two Germans showed first running toward him full speed before the major could bring a submachine gun up he saw the PFC and one other man robbing the Germans from behind with bayonets they spotted him and poked the prisoner in his direction they stopped in front of him before he noticed the mg34 the PFC was dragging behind him so they actually had the German machine gun the man dropped the gun in front of him saying here’s the gun you wanted major but this is all that’s left of the crew we had to kill two of them sir major Jones gulped nodded and motion to gay was another one of the guys to come to get the prisoners the private first class and his helpers jogged back toward their new outpost the major looked after them wondering just what sort of training or indoctrination they must have had first to run away from an enemy without trying to fight back and then to apologise for having killed – he looked down at the German that the battered German machine-gun kicked it idly and reminded himself to be more careful in issuing orders to new men they were apt to take things a bit on the literal side he was sure that the PFC had actually thought that the seal himself had a personal desire for the machine-gun they had knocked out and they we’ve gone to any ends to retrieve the gun itself in order to bring it back just because the major had added that for me when he ordered them to get the gun yet that’s like a common thing to kind of add right like in you know how back when he work at the nightclub you’d hear that all the time like it look especially when you’re managing big crowds so you say hey can you you know can you slide over on the side here for me and they’d always add the for me I always thought like that’s kind of strange thing – I mean it’s so common so but when you really think about is like – kind of strange thing to add but I think it like adds like this personal touch it was like a little too personal yeah I’ll drop out all right now he’s in the command post wet was one of the company commanders these guys were out clear in the city and he hears some commotion comes back into one of the room and lentils in there with one of the other officers or one of the other officers been working on him back to the Brooks sobbing was carefully cutting away the officers field jacket and shirt exposing a wide deep gash just below the shoulder Jon’s stomach turned over quickly when he saw the wound the bone was shattered with sharp splintered end sticking through the bloody pulpy massive torn flesh that’s this is Weddell he’s talking about lentil was damn near right they’d almost blowed his arm plumb off the s3 moaned closed his eyes as he leaned back to let Brooks duty could with the nasty wound but he pulled himself together in a moment or two and opened his eyes to look at the seal so he Ria’s Reynolds just in agony but he gets gets a grip then he looks at the seal squeezes his eyes together hard then looks at the CEO and says I was just coming back to tell you he drowned out between clenched teeth that we have our side of the townhall career with the man out on the edge when the artillery caught me in the middle of the street he flinched his face twisted in pain when the aid man who had taken over from books inadvertently twisted his arm as he sprinted soulful powder into the wound then he went on Chadwick is back didn’t know it until I saw him came up just came just before we pulled out out of the little road back up the hill you can put him in command he’s good he was gasping at the words now major can you get me out of here I don’t want to lose this arm sure boy we’ll get you out just try to relax now don’t worry about it take it easy and we’ll have you back to where they can fix it up in no time Weddell leaned heavily on Brooks who is still sobbing from the shock of seeing his captain so badly wounded Wetteland Brooks had been together a long time and major new the sergeant would be no good around the command post for a while so he motioned him to go along and look after the wounded s3 so again you know major Jones realizes that somebody’s at their capacity for handling the horrors of war and says hey you take this guy back to the aid station now there’s a German counter-attack so they’re in st lo the god thing is decently handled but all of a sudden they start seeing and there’s a guy in the field named Barnes he started to report back hey they’re they’re forming up a big counter-attack and also their field phones are been they lost wires so they’re going to have good communications they see this thing forming up there’s going to be overwhelm they’re really undermanned saint-lo is a pretty big city it’s all kind of destroyed but it’s still too big for the amount of people that they have and so they’re really scared that there’s going to be a big counter-attack the generals going to take the city back so they finally get through they don’t even know who they’re talking to they’re just trying to get through to somebody that can password to get the artillery to start dropping bombs and Henderson is one of the guys on the on the radio and he says damn it man this is the goon read in st Louis worsen that ever needed anything in all our lives and we need it right now all our lines our rear all our lines to the rear are out and our wire people spliced one and got you now quit asking damn fool questions and tell me if you can shoot for us insane low so this is going back and forth they start dropping bombs and all of a sudden they start adjusting the bombing closer and closer to them to their own lines back to the book angel fire direction Center was questioning the adjustment the correction would bring the shells inside the no fire line maybe on friendly troops hell yes we got dough’s on the edge of town who do you think wants this stuff anyways the artillery man was frantic afraid of the safety rules the big guns would make them stop them just when they needed the most please sir he pleaded just put it out there the the tree battalion commander is standing right beside me praying for more of it the last volley was right in there but the Germans are still coming they stand to get him to drop more bombs and bars the guys out in the field calls back in again that was marvelous do it again some more and then the guys transferring that repeat range fire for effect give us all you have and give it quick you’re breaking up the attack and you’re all we have and that’s enough that’s that they bomb the bejesus out of the Germans and that pretty much brakes the attack and again I’m summing up like seven pages of extended combat and finally though the the battle is for the most part over and they’ve got stabilized they kind of set some security and here we go back to the book major Jones his face in his hands as he sat down for the first time in hours he couldn’t help thinking of the death and agony to so many men so needlessly they’d hurt damnably deep inside and then a liaison officer from regiment came in with a lieutenant colonel his staff and all of his company commanders they were from the hundred and thirty fourth regiment of the 35th division which was to relieve the first battalion at once Jones could hardly believe it even when he saw his replacement standing there looking fresh and confident he was beginning to think the clay pigeons were supposed to go on forever fighting all alone except for the artillery the new battalion commander wondered about major stat Major John staff so he’s got a guy coming in to take over there getting relieved and the guy says you know hey what’s up where’s your battalion staff back to the book Jones explained and as he did he reviewed in his mind all that had happened in the short thirty days since the first attack and the boy dobrze tell his whole forward staff was gone Newcombe Sadler Carter and McCarthy dead Weddell and Hoffman wounded grim sell-out commanding a company nabbed Ryan Todd stoan Cordy AK Kenny and Dettman all wounded besides God knew how many other officers he had never even known by name the company commanders from four companies killed or wounded mostly in the space of seven short action-packed days he stopped talking while he thought for a moment of all those fine people when he glanced up catching himself he thought he was looking at a ghost there stood Kenny the shadow on his face wavering as the candle flickered and the faint breeze of his entry so Kenny had been wounded and now he’s back in an instant his troubles preoccupation with her with the relieving officers were forgotten Kenny he cried what in God’s name are you doing here well major I heard you got into town alright but were sort of short of company commanders I saw Todd Dettman and Cordy ACK back there so I thought I’d better get on up here and see if I could do anything the docs will let you go these days if you can stand up straight for two minutes without falling down the major saw that Kenny was exhausted in spite of his cheerful attitude he found out later that he had walked alone in the dark all the way from the division clearing station several miles to the rear in order to get back to the battalion his legs and back were covered with bandages under his new shirt and pants he said well old man there isn’t anything you can do right now these nice people have just come in so we’re going to be out of this rat trap in a little while you just go back behind mrs Blanchette here and lie down and get some rest you need it Kenny did as he was told the strain had begun to bend even his indomitable will at zero for 40 the major reported the regiment that the hundred and 34th Infantry had taken over the wireman took out the phone the major shook hands and said goodbye and good luck to the new arrivals then he and Kenny followed the companies down the hill just seven days ago they had numbered 800 they were now only 450 proud tired men the clay pigeons who had taken the core objective clay pigeons and from Omaha Beach to the Elbe the first Battalion 115 infantry 29th division had two thousand three hundred and eighty four casualties including four hundred and fifty-four men killed in action so that that’s that’s hard to even fathom again think about the fact that at this time a battalion was about it’s supposed to be about nine hundred men and they’d taken two thousand three hundred and eighty four casualties so all the replacements that came and kept getting wounded unbelievable and what’s I mean that you got to read this book and get the lessons learned in and also you get lessons learned from that book but you can also get some of major John’s lesson learned from colonel david hackworth in his book about face and what’s you want to talk about some layers some some historical layers to check this out so in about face you know hackworth talks about what happens in august 13th 1961 the communists in berlin that started stringing barbed wire and they were now going to build a wall between East and West Berlin and then you know Kennedy whose president wanted to do something like you can’t just you know we need we need to make some kind of a statement here so he sent 1 500 soldiers from the first battle group of the 8th Infantry Division and they were selected apparently by Kennedy by name so Kennedy said I want these guys and the reason is because their commander was a guy named Glover s Jones and he wanted them to go and reinforce the British French and American troops who were on the ground in Berlin and then layers Colonel John’s in his position appointed D Company in his battle group he’d be pointed D company to be the battle groups reaction force and who was the commander of D Company it was a young Korean War veteran who had come back into the army named captain at the time david hackworth and as I said pak worth points to Glover Jones as his primary source for leadership lessons learned and he captured them coming succinctly from Glover Jones himself in about-face so let’s take it back to that book for a minute here from about face all too soon Colonel Jones received orders back to Berlin as chief of intelligence so now this whole thing that they’d gone through with sending this this force to reinforce the French British and American troops on the ground in Berlin this is pretty much done all through soon Colonel Jones received orders back to Berlin as chief of intelligence most of us had known the magic couldn’t last forever but it didn’t change the fact that we were incredibly sad to see him go on 15 January 1962 the battle group fell out smartly for its final review before our favorite soldier the weather was bitterly cold but no one noticed we were all too busy standing tall and greedy soaking in the Colonel’s farewell address Jones’s a leader who taught by example some the points he made weren’t exactly new to us but to hear it in a single speech this great man’s basic philosophy of soldiering was like being led on letting in on the secret ingredients of some magical formula to wit strive to do small thing as well be a doer and a self-starter aggressiveness and initiative are two most admired qualities in a leader but you also must put your feet up and think so there’s a little dichotomy he’s hitting on yeah you got to be aggressive but you got to think strive for self-improvement through constant self-evaluation yeah be humble never be satisfied ask of any project how can it be done better don’t over inspector over supervise allow your leaders to make mistakes in training so they can profit from the errors and not make them in combat decentralized command key patru informed telling them what how and why builds their confidence the harder the training the more the troops will brag boom remember that guy to ask last podcast how do i improve the morale of a group get them get them to have pride train hard next enthusiasm fairness and moral and physical courage four of the most important aspects of leadership enthusiasm fairness and moral and physical courage next showmanship a vital technique of leadership that’s interesting and there’s a bunch of in about face hackworth he specifies some of these things that he would that that Glover Jones would do showmanship wise he walked down the range and he was a really good shot the rifle and apparently he have a guy throw a quarter like a coin up in the air and he’d shoot it because he was such a good shot that and another thing he did he’s about to give a speech somewhere and in sort of a mixed audience but a bunch of German um sort of political people Glover Jones gets up and just gives the speech in German alright next the ability to speak and write well two essential tools of leadership boom next there is a salient difference between profanity and obscenity while a leader employs profanity tempered with discretion he never uses obscenities next have consideration for others hmm next yelling the tracks from your dignity take your meta side and counsel them next understand and use judgment know when to stop fighting for something you believe is right discuss and argue your point of view until a decision is made and then support the decision wholeheartedly last stay ahead of your boss when John’s had finished Colonel couch TV order to pass in review and company by company we marched by with just that little extra precision our shoes uniforms and brass earlier attended to to provide just that little extra Sparkle as was the custom the company commanders peeled off after the unit’s past in the review stand and congregated for final goodbyes John’s had watched the parade with tears in his eyes the tears remained as he stood at attention so tears in his eyes that is Major Glover Jones that is the clay pigeons that is the first Battalion hundred and fifteen temperature 29th division and obviously he is an example of leadership and the men of his battalion the clay pigeons they are yet another example of the indomitable warrior spirit and culture that is the very core of this nation don’t forget that don’t forget that culture don’t ever forget it and for those of you out there right now defending our nation that spirit and that culture it can work to hold you up and having it in your brain can keep you strong in trying times but there’s also a dichotomy there because not only does that warrior spirit and warrior culture hold you up you also have to hold it up you have to maintain that warrior culture in the way you think and then the way you act and if you ever start to forget how you’re supposed to think and how you’re supposed to act then remember Colonel Glover Jones and the clay pigeons say hello and I think that’s all I’ve got for tonight echo Charles yes so I guess speaking of maintaining yes maybe you could tell us how we could maintain support of this podcast if you if you want if they want and for ourselves hey what is fire for effect in Ferris releases awesome so you’re on radio yeah and you’re watching your calling auxilary or you’re calling a naval gunfire or you’re calling air support and you’re trying to get them to hit this target whatever that target might be that’s are trying to get in to hit a building where they’re smooshed and they get a direct hit but now you say fire for effect yeah that means you’ll need to make any more adjustments you can just start hammering that’s a boom boom boom boom perfect good so when somebody does on it’s on target you like a fire first or I gotcha oh dang okay I think it is that’s one of those ones that you know I adhere oh you and life always say it and you know certain do we know how much no no not that one but that’s where I would hear it I hear it kind of come out oh and you know how certain terms if you’re not familiar with them you can kind of gather what it means yeah you know in a contact the commas run in the words and stuff like that but that one I I never could really figure out exactly what that means as opposed to you know modern I’ll fire at will or you know all these other things that you hear yeah fire for effect fire Perfector they would it kind of sounds like it could mean like to distract them or something to have some effect other than here in the target area I like that yeah apparently not apparently it’s the opposite and so good yeah they did amazing you sure hope these these guys man yeah in and I’m telling you like and I’ve said this before that thread of and I actually don’t like using the word or your culture yeah because because it’s so although reuses yeah man it’s so overused and it’s late just it’s it’s been so degraded just by these horrible meaningless things like as a warrior you know what I mean because he you know deactivated the crime and actually survived his prison term yeah it was reward warrior no you’re not yeah you know different but but there’s no other word that I can put on it at least that I could think of right now when you talk about the American culture and it’s so easy because America is a big place mmm and America has got a lot of good things going for it and a lot like you know the culture of art of art in America’s massive yeah the culture of music is is unbelievably powerful here the culture of Education and academia all these things are massive in America right and n it’s really easy to forget the culture this the most in my mind the most powerful culture that we have now I could be wrong I mean what about our arch put on trippin Oriole spirit and culture right that’s huge here very strong our capitalist culture we want to make money we want to grow we want to do things right those are all really really powerful and I think we tend to forget we tend to forget we want to we want to say that you know the Japanese Bushido culture is this thing we should look up to guess what that’s what that Bushido culture versus the US Marines the you know storming beaches in heavily defended beaches another guess what if the American warrior culture that’s that’s the real deal yeah that’s the real deal the Nazis oh the stormtroopers oh yeah those are such a warrior culture guess what compare them to these guys yeah no not happening sorry yeah yeah these in his a lot like that there was a little part the book where the guy got his legs blown off something like that and he was like I’ll be back yeah I’ll be like teasing and it really seemed like he was you wasn’t pissed about his legs he was pissed that he’s out of the game feels like I’m like guys down I’m good you know yeah I think a lot of times and you know America is kind of wanted in example where you know once all things are going real good it’s easy to point out the things that are not going but you know like here whatever the case may be like when if everything’s perfect the little imperfections show themselves more you know like if your life is like everything’s together work yeah I know your job is good and your family good or whatever but meanwhile like you’re out about your front lawn is going down you’re like my front lawn is going by you know is like that kind of thing I think that’s what we have in the u s it’s kind of like we things are real ideas I think it’s more just a matter of percentage I mean I think in America right now it’s like a 1% of the population is actually in the military I mean all these World War two veterans not many of them left Vietnam veterans are getting older Korean veniat veterans are very very rare at this point so and what are our movies about you know instead of making movies about saint-lo they make movies about the aliens attacking or whatever yeah you know so we just it’s pretty easy to forget that the reason we’re here and the reason we’re not speaking German is only reason we’re not speaking Japanese is because of this warrior culture here which kind of it’s right up there yeah it’s right up you show me any warrior culture that has the same that you know I know there’s equivalents I know there’s other I know there’s other military units in the world and other countries that have a proud military tradition as well but you know obviously I’m biased towards mine yeah but uh you tell me any historical unit that you say oh these guys were the Spartans and they were the real warriors right you know you haven’t really spent much time with a 19 year old Marine yeah you you haven’t spent much time with a with it with with a soldier from an Airborne you just you just you gotta meet those guys yeah I’m telling you they’re the real deal yeah and no matter what kind of you know historical warrior you want you want to throw out there I’ll put my Americans against the head-to-head it just the terms that just straight-up warrior culture and spirit yeah I’ll go I’ll go toe-to-toe I’ll go toe-to-toe for sure I’m not I’m not trying to say we’re better yeah but I will toe to toe with the Spartans yeah I will toe to toe with them I’m just talking you know my warrior culture against your warrior culture in the way you live your life you go meet some of these young soldiers and Marines out there yeah you can come and talk me into end Special Operations guys you know what I mean obviously yeah go come and get some yeah man dig it come in fire for effect sorry Brad it’s I just learned the word I’m translated in warrior culture doesn’t get through all of America you know nonetheless we are down to support ourselves I was going to make some wisecrack about Hawaii but you know yeah you might you might get done well not going to do that yeah but no because massive there’s a there’s a great book that somebody sent me and it’s about japanese-americans that formed up you know we sent Americans sent many Japanese to internment camps in America in World War two they also took a bunch of them and turned them into a fighting unit so the 442nd yes and they were they might be the most highly decorated unit of their of that size yeah because they but a lot of them came from white yeah yeah huge Japanese community in Hawaii yeah yeah yeah and speaking of one cut like a in Hall like the own warrior culture why for sure yeah so you might love they’re just straight ups like a BJ Penn right now yeah and my boy max Holloway by the way by the way champ yeah my mare max came and trained with us yeah after all for man what a border beast yeah you know what he was training hard yes he was training hard he wasn’t even close to UFC yet this was years ago it wasn’t close to UFC yet it’s more your culture at him yeah get some super nice guy to when you when you consider like even let’s say the Spartans and you consider all their battles and stuff this is like hand-to-hand sword to neck battle just like dang that’s savage but back in those days look at all kinds of cultures so consider Hawaiian culture if you look at the weapons like you can look like in museums just go online whatever look at the weapons that they used in battle and then consider like that’s what you got to use it’s like savage meant like so we are there there are a lot of legitimate warrior cultures this is different there’s no doubt and what I’m saying to capsulate what I’m saying this America has won yeah it’s yeah I’m totally tell with any adults let me sleep on that so support support wise I’m gonna shift gears here so we you know idea talk about kettlebells Volta I feel like I’m talking about keto not just now I feel like I talked about kettlebells a lot it’s one of those things you know how like you go from thing to thing and you’re like hey I’m finna go to water cycle yeah yeah you go from thing to thing well you know try to acquired knowledge and we call skills capabilities will say capabilities that’s important participation is required kettlebells is kind of like a thing that I recently got into and I’m going to be honest this you seem kind of good at them Brad you know because consider kicks here’s I’m going to go into numbers whatever so my metcon was is whit was um I’ll do 135 greineder cleaning press Oh correct whatever the presents are like just pressing right jerk is kind of like yeah you jerk your body kind of thing okay so it’s clean and jerk with 135 you know the wheels oh five and then two burpees walk for 30 to 35 seconds walk boom do it again so anywhere from I don’t know to about 8 sets would be like a solid one usually why you know 30 second walk by the way it’s like the recovery it’s like it’s like you’re breathing that’s okay so it helps wait why should I not do that I know is that I’ve been over five five five five now I wouldn’t alright I challenge you right now we’re gonna do it together and you just go five five okay you can go longer well I don’t want to do that well my dad contest wouldn’t be to go longer well whoever whoever stops the rhythm I’m saying that the rest is but it’s part because here’s the goal that’s why well let me ask you this I wanted to take you like 30 seconds to do did you take 30 seconds to do the five and five yeah no no more no no no more than thirty so you do five clean up press right boom five burpees yeah it’s one thirty seconds maybe 45 at the most yeah yeah maybe 45 yeah I don’t know that’s a good question it’s 130 though for sure okay well my guess it might be all right so we’ll put that on the timer though you should I do say in like a minute thirty I dress for 32 34 you should be like okay I’m doing it all because you’re saying it like the tabata like yeah well you should you you should do a minute thirty seconds and every no and every minute and 30 seconds you do the five and five okay so that way you get because by this by the sixth set you’ll be like tired when you’re starting it right but you don’t arrest more yeah push yourself this is kind of my thought my thought process on it is I’m gonna do a certain kind of work capacity you know like a you know five reps of this and fire up to this and then I’m gonna have a have a kind of an active recovery period walking yeah and here’s the thing and it’s kind of the goal this is good I actually I actually am going back on what I said I think this is actually not a bad idea because but you need to put it’s like when I do sometimes do stuff on the minute yeah what makes me nervous about what you’re saying is like I like less for about 30 to 35 seconds no I don’t know what that means okay because because that could be 40 seconds yeah that could also be it’s not you got a clock on yeah 100% so the here’s the weird thing about having a clock but ever since I started lifting rest between sets has been critical part of by lifting reaching it from the beginning rest between two because there’s just what I learned in stuff like that so I don’t think the clock and actual clock is not been a part of a work up ever it’s part of the wait wait wait there’s wait just like you’re lifting those weights that’s what the weights are for you’re gonna rest in between sets that’s what the cost is for you can’t just go willy-nilly of your hair I’ll just order whatever looks good and that’s just myself if I’m not on the clock of a one-hour workout for me it would take like two hours yeah there’s I’ll just I’ll just be thinking about something or I’ll just take more rest and I should have taken or whatever yeah and consider this if you’re doing let’s say you’re doing five sets of squats mm-hmm if I said I don’t know eight we’ll say no my you’re pushing on your second set you can do more weight than or less weight then on your first set if you rest for less time all right so if you rest for five minutes you can do way more yeah so that’s putting your body through something different than if you would have just rested less so it just depends on what you’re trying to put your body through well you can recover from all kind of results those are just our hardest workouts is and this isn’t this is an this one equals freedom filled nail I used to do the 20 reps squat workout sure which is you take a weight that you can do ten times you do 20 times kiss okay far and and it’s all it’s devastatingly hard and I would rest for 20 minutes and then I would do it again and then I would rest for 20 minutes managing to get you froze because of that that is okay so low tech man and I believe you I’m not saying it’s easy I’m not saying that but that being said technically that’s impossible technically yes you’re right it is impossible to do something and only need 10 times to 25 yeah if you can do the weight that you rember and for 20 times that’s the way you can do for 25 straight at tennis so I get I get it yeah yeah but I’m not gonna I’m not going to you’re right yeah but you also understand what I’m not I know exactly return like you’re like a normal like you’re not maxing out at 10 reps on it with this weight it that but this is my normal maybe if I’m gonna do a setting and we’ll be surprised that the way you can get like let’s say you know you you picked the right weight that you can like I could use ten times yeah legitimately and you’re like you know what I’m going to do it 20 times I know less freedom sorry I did it you’re right and but I think that’s like a personalities kind of situation like when you say I’m gonna do a weight twenty times what I can you know let’s say for like about it are normally do ten it’s not normal also you’re like you’re basically you’re resting as much as a human being can rest with a bunch of weight on their back in between reps we get to rep 12 you’re taking like time but it’s it’s it’s a really it’s a losing proposition because while you’re waiting they’re resting you’re actually suffering back start to get old me yeah yeah yeah get over his squats are brutal because you’re not resting in an overhead squat usually and it’s like awkward and yeah that that’s hard the overhead squat situation but and not to beat a dead horse here so like consider if you said hey someone who’s pretty new more or less to working out saying hey get it wait you can do for ten and do it 20 they’re going to mess up in one way to probably they’re going to be like okay I can do this 10 times I know that and I’m gonna try to do 20 if they can’t even get 20 because you said the way that they could do for 10 they try for 20 they fail at 10 that’s how much they can do for 10 or they’ll go the other way they’ll be like usually go get them and they’ll be like wait I got to do this 20 times goals yeah yeah I can do this I can do the bar ten times so I’ll do the bar kind of thing so you have that knowledge where you you’re like hey I know the weight that I do for ten and it’ll be hard but you know what I’m gonna get nuts and if I really push myself I can get twenty guess what I’m using that weight so you kind of have that because you’ve been trained if I get anything yeah you’re right and I don’t think I’ll ever do that even though I kind of considered it last time you mentioned it but then when I got in the workout room was like yeah then I don’t think I’ll ever do that maybe I will actually I’ll tell you what I will do is someone online maybe with you someone was saying a hundred burpees in ten minutes that you say yeah yeah and Brent Brandon just texted me yesterday yeah great where did you go to do it I was considering I’m gonna do it in the first time I do that hard I’m surprised at branding Brandon’s a good shape you ever see he posts like pictures of himself doing these crazy push-up workouts yeah I can’t believe he can’t do it that’s why I’m so surprised this is little guys weird yes good creative push-up gels dozen your creative push-up drills like well I don’t know he doings weird stuff and puts his hands up here over there yeah that’s awkward yeah totally good yeah cuz you ever straight like hey I got good at push-ups when I was Lincoln X I’m so pretty solid that push-ups but you tried to a push-up with you know yeah just and you’re like oh this is way off kinda like good Specter seems like what you used to you’re doing or muscular creature what we were saying we don’t a there something about gentle bone yeah nice we kind of wrap up right now and then you started talking about other stuff crazy squats and why not that’s you know what is my fault next time I want anything yeah yeah see that’s like that’s what I see what you did there look you took blame you can you told me what you’re gonna do to fix it extreme ownership in effect oh also okay wait well what were we talking about oh yeah I’m into kettlebells now yeah and you want to say where you should get your kettle off I’m not saying that’s where you should I’m saying where I got them and if you want you cattle bells anywhere where really what about cool kettle bell okay whoa that’s a different story my friend anyway I got mine from on it I’m not even saying get the cool kettle bells I’m saying go to on it calm flash Jack oh look at the kettle bells you like those kettle bells if you’re gonna get into kettle bells or if you’re already currently into kettle bells get someone who knows if you like I like them I got one the small one it’s called howler a little howler monkey mmm I think it’s a monkey anyway howler monkey kettlebell it’s like once they 18 pounds let’s 0 5 food eight pounds prove you 16 pounds yeah no no 16 kilos I think I’m sorry 16 girls yeah yeah so yeah so eight kilos 16 pounds you ever take 17 18 months Oh anyway I got one of those for my daughter so he comes visit he’s 11 not into working out we’ll just say that yeah is now is now yeah so I’m like you know he’s one of his kids he’s like you know he’s into math and whatnot so I’m working out all the time and I never really thought until someone maybe kind of suggested it to say hey come work out with me you know so tell him come work out and he kind of caught him at the end where it was that con time and he and I was like eight come worked out cuz I saw him you know and he’s like yeah is it cool immediately dude by the way be surprised I’m not surprised yeah man I’m surprised you’re working out there like man I want to be like that yeah you know in their hands I did remember you saw somebody I was all yoked you’re like Edie how do I do that the whole reason I work out to be honest would be like remember the show American Gladiators I’m done yeah but it was not from when I was a kid yeah I didn’t watch it the way you were a parent yeah I was watching that I was like bro I want to be American diet because they were there it was like because they were them the mix between these big kind of almost like bullies not bullies like not really people but they were like you know when you play video game you come against the boss so you look at him you’re like I can’t beat this guy I can’t beat him oh yeah and you’re a normal character or whatever and then they end up with that’s what American Gladiators was in real life I was like dang this American Gladiators their money because they’re athletic too cause like man I’d watch it I do a bunch of push-ups up in like 68 isn’t like that yeah it’s the whole reason anyway I think a lot of kids have that in their mind so she’s boys for sure in one way or another so I was like hey come work out with me and use like like okay just on this phone yeah who’s on the phone not anymore full-out little Uncle Jake scenario Uncle Jake 100% does it I was Uncle Jake at that time legit nephew there really actually UV to me I was visiting but nonetheless he comes I teach him the form and kids kind of have good form what he did because they’re flexible yeah the flexible they haven’t fallen into like improper patterns yeah maybe like like adults ever or something maybe I don’t know that’s just a guess but anyway so I’m like you know just a basic kettlebell swing I say I’d say this is what you’re gonna do do it I’ll do it I’ll show you how him little little tips or whatever you know it was a perfect form at first you just and you could do it not the kind of all the way up or nothing just so basic I’m like alright and my daughter happened to be there and so she knows about burpees so it’s like okay what we’re gonna do is room you’re going to kettlebell swings with five and then you’re going to do burpees and then we’re going to walk for 30 seconds basically mimic but he’s doing the kettlebell swings rather than the clean breath so then you need to do burpees burpees just jump down do a push-up and then jump up in there that’s a burpee so he does it I was like well I’m like you know when you transition from standing to pushup there’s some wiggle room there for air so I tell my daughter hey demonstrate she does she’s four so you can do pretty good too right away so she does it and I’m so of course he can do it he’s a little girl did so he doesn’t make the adjustment boom he’s good to go he’s ready so I mean fired out because mine’s about to be super hard like it normally is and he’s like he could tell he’s getting fired up too you know so I set the clock and we go and it was kind of easy to be honest with you because we had about for each other yeah and boom that kid did did the whole thing and he’s not sweating afterwards you know and he’s the kind where he doesn’t do that kind of stuff you know but you could tell he was super fired up and you know what he said next what he said afterwards he’s like hey next time you work out can you let me know right up that’s a good thing uncle echos in now in the house man in the house yeah so you had a book about that yeah maybe maybe I will it’ll be the best book ever hit next anyway Kida let’s go on it they have a lot of good stuff you ever done battle ropes before yes you have a but not never have like either in some random GM I was at right I’ve seen people doing this i’ma do some home yeah they’re like big yeah big ropes and they I guess that’s a good exercise for but I was considering that it’s awesome on there you know a lot of good stuff on it calm slash Jocko check 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telling you but anyway yeah a look if you’re in the mood leave a review you know as long as you’re honest that’s the main thing and you know get colorful with it if you want those are actually fun ones like I said yeah we review yeah sure if you if you feel like it subscribe subscribe to YouTube we have YouTube if you didn’t know everyone knows I think yeah yeah cuz we see it all the time but in the event of this video why wouldn’t I subscribe to it then why wouldn’t why wouldn’t someone subscribe to it if I were a person who all wait if you’re looking at the podcast it makes sense yeah I don’t know how many there would ever be to not welcome you here this is what the reason I lived in vodka I saw do I look I go to youtube and I only watch people playing first-person shooter video games you know how that I don’t know if you know this but that’s the thing like people will watch other people yeah on YouTube videos playing shooter games okay let’s say I’m only into that I’m probably not going to subscribe or actually this one’s actually legitimate one that I can kind of dig and relate to is if my YouTube subscribing situation is only two kids stuff only tickets up because every once in a while I give my phone to my kid okay and they watch like you know they watch like Peppa Pig I don’t know something well and then you they click because a lot of times the podcast is just what the podcast is on YouTube but like the other day you released a deleted scene what he believes is a pre recording we were just talking yeah before and people seem to think it was pretty funny yeah even I thought it was glad but well yeah when you detached it is really boiling other thing is if someone wasn’t listening if someone’s not on subscriber YouTube they would never know that that existed yeah and then you missed it initial pretty funny yeah I thought it was funny too yeah even though it’s kind of kind of harsh you know would you call me getaway sticks or something like that mess stuff anyway yeah see now you’re you just went into the reasons to subscribe oh there’s a hole good because you know the excerpts that we make put out just cut tiny segments three minutes nowadays even though that you’re likely to see with 16 yeah you know that’s different but not as pretty funny yeah about the excerpts you know they’re just like individual ideas that you talk about boom shareable all good that’s a good reason to subscribe to YouTube one of the many my opinion also chocolate is a store it’s called chocolate or chocolate or Comcast a URL on there what do we have shirts rash guards rash guards out we started four jiu-jitsu but here’s the thing rash guards are for surfing and bodyboarding and jacking steel jack and feel yes cycling these are all that’s what really like I say it’s a spandex shirt there’s little things yeah I definitely term rash guards only applies to surfing and you’re not worried about getting a rash on your weight you’re not worried about getting a rat I guess yeah I guess did you do the chapter eight yeah I guess so yeah guard you against rational or ringworm or whatever yeah it has be yeah so nonetheless I mean the point there is that it’s for everything just because you’re jock was talking about jiu-jitsu although I know it’s not for everything because I don’t want to get you at a club in a in or get after a rash guard well that’s you can speak for yourself because if I saw someone at the club with a get after it rash guard I would I would say good evening to that person that’s your boy and I don’t ever say thank you don’t be mad I don’t know okay Kevin no no rash guards when you’re out not doing activities I’m not a supporter of that yeah you know what to be actively be completely honest I don’t know that I would support it right I mean just like hey I’m going out I’m going to supermarket put on my get after a basket yeah I guess if you do that like you never know what’s going to happen yeah you might want to be ready right that’s true yeah yeah you get some good workouts in the grocery store yourself in the 64 you know long line yeah so you’re in the rash guard your compression you’re ready it’s absolutely true and you know you want to look into that go to jungle store come so the shirts on there I think I try to add like a new one every what like month or you know I don’t know what your goal is yeah I don’t know if I we have i I’ve been wearing Bronson’s children t-shirt me do yeah that’s the worry because that’s that yeah don’t yeah this shirt that you made gonna do it going that you made with my face on it or whatever thing so I’d always get caught up on the front like haha that’s funny the front and all the layers on the front but on the back it says good evening so when you wear that one that’s when people are going to talk to you the most you know like you don’t worry the one with your face on it ever do you know there’s no reason for you to okay yeah it would be weird if they I don’t have my face yeah you need to lure in my favor yeah exactly enough you know look at that um but if you wear that one it’s a good evening on the back so I I never really thought of if I haven’t worn it I don’t even have one but that’s the one I’d wear this one looking good people will say something they were like good or good is backward you’re sure it’s backwards I don’t know or who’s that guy in your shirt whatever people will say something get the good evening one they’ll talk to you even more but they’ll do it from behind they’ll tell you good evening every single time interesting you haven’t worn it yeah how do you know there’s no cuz I know and I know the compulsion like I know the feeling that’s my hypothesis anyway and from what I hear from the field anyway go on there if you like something get something that’s a good way to support there’s some hats oh really release coming out within one week how about that cool okay all right there it is I better have like nine of them lined up at my doorstep I cuz I need some of them have you got it right I promise oh so yeah some patches on there as well anyway check it out if you like something get something also psychological warfare you know what that is it’s an album with track Jaakko tracks jaco talking getting you through various points of weakness in your and I’ve been really trying to think of a word to say other than journey I haven’t yet or in stick with journey so when you’re on your journey tours you’re trying to wake up wake up early maybe I will do it you’re trying to work out or you’re too casual you’re trying to work out everyday everyday now even on rest days you’re doing in mobility water pressure like this yeah man sometimes you want to turn those those workout days interests days so don’t do that and if you need a little spot with that you listen to psychological warfare that’s a track for for any point of weakness like I said get after it psychological warfare Amazon music iTunes various other mp3 outlets Joe : now first if you haven’t heard yet we are now in league with origin USA no company that we are now a part of is in months in the making we’ve been going back and forth with my boy Pete Roberts and who actually this is you wonder about layers the reason that we are linked up in the beginning was because of Sarah Armstrong sure who heard me talking about how cool origin was yeah that they make everything in the America and she sent Pete an email and said hey I run this company and this guy was talking about you you guys would talk to each other guess what we talked and now we’re getting after it and we joined forces so we’re playing in all kinds of things and gear DS rash guards planning some supplements believe it or not is the rash crack that can stop not yet we were doing a little we’re doing a lot of building right now yeah yeah but we got all kinds of things coming basically you know basically I want to make everything that I use to get after it yeah I want to make a zoo so so everything and I’m and when I say everything is not a long list I don’t use that much stuff to get after it yeah I use a pretty small list but I want to make it and I want to make it them in America so if you want to check it out check out origin Mein Kampf because it’s in New England which one I’m from ding no big deal Ayers layers indeed and also if you want to get into it like now you want to find out really what’s going on there’s an origin immersion jujitsu camp in Maine I realized I hadn’t even explained what this is you ever see Lucy I’m from New England so I know what this is I know what if camp is you you may or may not know people and other parts of course you may or may not a camp in this form is in this situation it’s Big Lake and on the lake here is a property and on the property they have a bunch of little cabins a bunch of them like multiple cabins and when you go to a camp you stay in the cabins and then they have a kind of a central area but well we are renting out the entire camp our how many cabinets like dozens and dozens of cabins right all these things on a lake and then there’s a main kind of gathering area well guess what we’re putting in the main it guess what we’re putting in the main gathering area let on max it’s so we’re to go you know if you want to come you come up you come to Maine it’s three hours from Boston it’s and half an hour from Augusta Maine we’re gonna be there echo and I are going to be there Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday there’s two sessions that are going on the first one is the 20 the 20th through the 23rd I think yeah the 23 23rd so echo not going to be the Tuesday Wednesday fair so we’re going to be a part of both sessions and so come to that and what we’re going to do is we’re going to train to jitsu but you can only train jiu-jitsu so many hours day so what else we’re going to or hang out with a cruise please big time we’re going to do some kind of there’s a big lake there so you can’t surf in the lake but we’ll figure something water activity out right sure and we’re making lobster and I don’t like lobster but I’m gonna have steak and you can have lobster and and yeah so we’ll be hanging out wait this is the lake is the lake cold can you swim in the lake you can swim in the lake really cold how cold it is I don’t know but I don’t know the temperature like but Maine summertime it’ll be it’s not gonna be freezing okay I don’t think and if it is good to give your muscles right recovery and also during this so during the same two if you come up or if you can’t make that you want to up through this anyways we’re having a grand opening of our new origin factory in Farmington Maine so big factory 20 000 square feet I think it’s bigger than 20 000 square feet everyone’s invited to that come hang out you know thinking we do like we’ll do like a QA or something we’ll hang out we’ll bring books do this windows kick it so come up to that that is the 23rd of August in Maine common hangout like I said what is the jujitsu part of it what how does that work like the you know there’s two weeks you can go for the whole thing no it’s not two weeks it’s one week long it’s from the 20th to 27th but it’s brilliant watching sessions so so winning mean sessions like what we all just roll you have different teachers they update your site yeah but being I think we’re doing I think it’s three sessions a day of jiu-jitsu yeah I mean how many sessions can you roll hard apps so some of them in their head you know I’ll drill some technique with you hey maybe over some front lock stuff with me or whatever you know what I mean yeah I think there’s gonna be some of that and but then there’s also a bunch of different black belts going to be there yeah Alex show moves yeah yeah so immersion yeah immersion that’s how you learn not so I do not go Nolan’s coming back from the West Coast first uh he’s coming out he’s he hit me up so yeah come on up to that we have a good time also when we’re there we’re gonna have some chocolate white tea so if there’s anyone that wants to instantly deadlift eight thousand pounds you can get the chuckle white tea if you need to crush an academic test get chocolatey if you need some right now you get some on Amazon books we’ll get some books for your kid or whatever kids you know we got the way the warrior kid there’s lessons in there for everybody check it out if you want the first edition of discipline equals freedom Field Manual order it soon or go to your bookstore and tell them you want to get it preorder it whatever you got to do Amazon Barnes & Noble’s your local bookstore get it now I’m going to tell you don’t get this book for your wine-sipping book club not a book for them they won’t like it you’re part of that Club don’t get it for them you can still get it but don’t bring it to the book club yeah they’re there they’re sipping wine they’re not in a game but if you want to get stronger tougher smarter healthier and more prepared all-around better person get the book Pinnacle’s freedom field manual comes out October 17th which means they’re printing it almost now hmm so that means if you don’t order it is there’ll be backed up you’re not going to have it everyone else is going to have it you can have an edge on you maybe you never recover like that battle I was talking about earlier you know someone else gets the edge but you just says make it all so extreme ownership own it refer to it highlighted implement it spread the word get it for your team your company or organization wrote that with my brother lace babban so if you don’t have that and you have copies for every single person that you’ve ever known data form also echelon front leadership consulting assessments instruction me wave Babb and JP Danelle Dave Burke get the team organized and coordinated for action and for victory that’s my recommendation if you want to get that process going email info and echelon front calm finally the muster is September 14th and 15th in San Diego all the other masters at sold out more than half the tickets for San Diego have already sold out so this is going to sell out don’t get left out in the cold you can register it extreme ownership calm and if you need to talk to us before you see us at the immersion camp in Maine and before you go to the muster in San Diego you can find us on the interwebs the Twitter the Instagram that Facebook ebo hot and although snapchat you’re on snapchat I’m on it I’m learning from my children okay good that’s the way people communicate now this is nap chat and I love a lot of pages guess what Wall Street Journal’s on there The Economist is on there it’s not it’s not this thing for your teenage 14 year old kid anymore well it is but yeah well maybe I got out of the basement is also the main group No and you something to it I don’t know I’m talking rubbish but I have a snap 10 I don’t use it and I have it like you know I think you gotta like confirm your account I was doing because my daughter likes to make the faces yeah yeah crazy faces my young started let’s do that yeah so she did it on my wife’s phone all the time and then she hit me up for it like hey let me do she call it snap chaps so she’s like let me snapchat she doesn’t know what it the issue this is just a safe inning I’m like alright so I tried to do it and so I’m not gonna confirm I was like nah so I didn’t but I’m yeah I guess I’m like one foot in one foot out kind of thing well I’m not read anything yet I’m going I almost didn’t I was like trying to figure it out yeah yeah have a gay man but J told me this is what J told me which was smart yeah this is what J told me your brother Jade I said you know what’s just I don’t really understand it and he goes that’s why you need to do that Mel really like wow I shit myself okay you’re right you don’t like oh I’m afraid of something why am I afraid of it don’t understand it how do you overcome that yeah cuz apparently it’s a good method again and then J and not to say Jade said so so it’s right I’m not saying that but he’s real smart with that kind of stuff like he knows he see he knows the trends we can like predict shit stuff like how you know how like how it’ll work and who’s gonna is in fact what he does now is AI artificial intelligence with applications and stuff like that so he knows that stuff so it’s like when he kind of said he cannot but be like yeah you’re right you know even if you don’t know you’re like well consider the source kind of the in fact he got me into cryptocurrency investment there’s my investment and I’m up 30% that’s all I’m going to say about it so like I hate to giving him the credit for that but you can’t help it yeah well you can find us on the interwebs Decco is at Echo Charles and I am at Jocko will Inc and finally thanks to everyone that makes this podcast possible first our military whose strengths and true warrior culture allows us the freedom to do what we want to do and thanks to the lise law enforcement firefighters paramedics first responders who are ever vigilant and always ready I was just driving back from Yosemite and there big forest fires up there and all kinds of people had signs out saying thanks to the firefighters so thanks for you guys up there in the mountains fighting the fires and to the rest of you that are out there working building making and squeezing every ounce of life that you can crushing every minute of every day out there leading in the face of adversity and doing everything you can to be everything you can to all you thanks for being in the game with us and thanks for getting after it so until next time this is echo and Jocko out