Jaakko I’ve just finished about face the book amazing book interested how you modeled your style on Hackworth though hack was a renegade and always bending the rules to break to the breaking point but in extreme ownership you talk about for example not pushing back on higher command when it came to Iraqi troops have listened to podcasts too but was hoping you could go into it a bit more yeah so I guess that that’s a good question hack he was kind of considered a renegade but but also he was also a total company man you got to realize that there’s that dichotomy there there’s a guy that hack loved the army he loved the army he wanted his uniform would look super squared away he followed all the rules and regulations that and he supported the leadership all the time when the leadership was right hmm and that’s what makes him a good renegade in my opinion and I was very much the same way I was all about the Navy you know I was all about the games as a matter of fact Tony you know what Tony used to say it was a little thing we got going in to you bruiser that spread around but of course it came from Tony first which was all Navy all the time would just be joking about you know I think I don’t know what originally caused it but like guys would make fun of me because I would wear like jungle boots or Dan or boots out to on Liberty with a pair of like old jeans yeah because when you’re when you’re like that kind of old just raised in the team’s you don’t even know any different and you’re like oh I’m going out and I need to our shoes cool where’s my jungle boots that’s what you end up like and and you’re into it you’re not like you think it’s good you think it’s normal like this is the way things are it’s not and so I supported the teams and HACC supported the army of course but this is the thing if the leadership was wrong or there was something being passed down that was wrong and it was a big wrong like if it was little I wouldn’t be like oh man this is crap they’re making us wear a different pair of shorts now cuz like that would happen like some new commanding officer would come in change some thing right and sometimes we’re gonna do that with dude be quiet you know just be quiet you know they’re giving you new shorts where are the new shorts you know oh they’re telling us we can’t wear baseball hats anymore cool don’t worry baseball hats yeah and some gospel gold the truth who cares it’s like I don’t care what I’m wearing on my head you know like oh you want to issue his different ball caps to find whatever but then if it was a larger issue then or obviously if it was something that was like actually wrong like criminally wrong or morally wrong or something like that then yeah I’d be like no we can’t do that so the reason that I didn’t push back on Iraqi troops and working with Iraqi troops when we got to Ramadi was because as I looked at it I realized that it was the right thing to do and yes it was gonna be more dangerous and yes it definitely took us out of our comfort zone but as I explained in Xtreme ownership if we didn’t train those people up if we didn’t train the Iraqi soldiers and take them out and get them fighting and get them squared away on the battlefield then Americans would have been doing it forever so it was the correct call was to do that now I’ve talked about the same same thing when they told us a ratio they gave us a ratio of how many Iraqis we had to have for everyone Iraqi we had to have I don’t know what that I forget what that I was seven or for every one SEAL we had to have seven Iraqi soldiers they they said that something like that I forgot what the numbers were and I said that doesn’t make sense to us cuz sometimes we only have ten guys to go out and I’m there’s no way I’m sending only one seal with ten Iraqi soldiers not doing it need a corpsman need a radio men need machine gunner need a leader like that’s what I need so and when I pushed back because I didn’t push back against ball caps and because I didn’t push back against some stupid uniform change they were like oh yeah well that actually makes sense Jocko we don’t want you to go in the field with only one seal so I would clearly push back if it was something that makes the same thing with like the martial arts training that they had us doing in the in the late 90s and early 2000s it was not good mm-hmm and I was told everyone hey this is not smart this is not good this training is dumb we need to do other training that’s better and same thing you know things go well like here’s another like stupid example they wouldn’t want to issue a platoon the the radio is you were gonna take on deployment because they didn’t want you to break them or whatever mm-hmm and so they’d issue not enough radios for everyone and so now that everyone doesn’t know how to operate the radios and you’re basically operationally testing the radios while you’re going through your workup so I said hey this is garbage issue everyone radios right that’s how we operate that’s how we need to train just so in the training they wouldn’t issue that the radios yeah there was like a time period we’re low on radios they said we’re gonna keep these radios for deploying minutes that doesn’t make sense yeah I got a good idea buy more radios yeah so you know those are things I push back on and you were always pushing back on the type of training that was gonna happen and who was gonna how you’re gonna run the training so when something when it made sense to push back I push back just like Hackworth did now hackworth did it on a massive scale because he eventually pushed back on the way the war in Vietnam was being run mm-hmm and had I been smart enough and the war didn’t take the shift that it took and we didn’t move towards counterinsurgency and we didn’t make those adjustments that the that Colonel MacFarland implemented in Ramadi maybe maybe I doubt it maybe I would have been smart to say hey we’re not running this war right we need to do something different and run another clan but but at the time you know Colonel MacFarland made great decisions he led they had a great plan a great strategy so I was 100% onboard but if you know Hackworth that didn’t happen they were not fighting correctly against the Vietnamese and and they were taking massive casualties for a hill that two days later they’ve give back mm-hmm and so he was saying what are you doing and and the other thing you know when he took over the hardcore battalion they were fighting for months and they had they had literally killed of almost no anyway I think it was zero I think actually zero enemy and yet they had taken all kinds of casualties themselves and so we’ve seen wait this is wrong this is wrong so I think that’s that’s what being a leader is you support the stuff you support the command yes of course you support the command when it makes sense and as long as it makes sense and normally it’s gonna make sense you know I mean normally it’s gonna make sense not like the the Admirals and the generals are saying hey how can we lose this war let’s come up with a stupid strategy no they’re doing the best they can so it’s not like it’s a regular occurrence I mean like I said when I was working for Carter Colonel MacFarland he was a smart guy he was a brilliant guy that had a great strategy of I’m like okay awesome I’m here to support and and I’ll tell you when I did and this is I think this is important is that even though I was kind of a renegade and I was more rebellious when I was a kid obviously I was a I was young when I got the SEAL Teams then so you know we would pushing all those things that I said oh we got to do this that was me when I was at E for in the SEAL Teams you know what we got to do that we should just be able to do whatever we want you know we’re just stupid but as I got older I realized that you need to you know come across as a renegade quote-unquote to come across as a big rebel that doesn’t well immediately when you go and push back on something everyone just dismisses you oh yeah jock oh he’s just a loudmouth he just he just pushed it back against everything he doesn’t he’s won’t do everything his way no you want them to say oh wow hold on a second if jock was pushing back against this yeah then this this must be something wrong here because he doesn’t push back against stuff he tells the line all the time so we should listen to him that’s what you want to build that’s what I did my best to build and that’s how I think it would be comparable to the way Hackworth led and the way that I tried to um obviously I know Hackworth but I stole as much as I could from him and the weird thing is I’ll tell you this I always say I stole from him but it wasn’t like I was sitting there reading the book knowing I’m gonna do what he did here I think it was just absorbed and even even the naming of task unit bruiser like when I did it I wasn’t thinking this is what Hackworth did but it was real obvious that that’s where I got it from like I didn’t think I’m gonna rename this indeed we’re gonna turn this thing around base to order would not turn around but we’re gonna build this based on no I was like you know what we’re not gonna be tasking at Bravo because that sounds lame we’re gonna be tasking a bruiser because that sounds awesome you know and and and then later you know I look back I’m like oh god that’s what that’s exactly what hack words that I obviously stole it from him yeah so appreciate it AK but that’s what I’d say BIA renegade but that should be that should be in the background that should be in the back of your mind in the front of your mind should be hey I’m a supporter of what’s happening yeah kind of like the willingness to be a renegade if you have to yeah yeah if you have to and believe me I’ve known all kinds of good seals that were to renegade yeah yeah just like I’m ironic yeah there’s a straight-up hey I’m a renegade and and you know that just it the only guys that could get away with that well guys that were so ultimately operationally squared away yeah that people go yeah you know he’s kind of a maniac but dude he’s really really good and really tactically sound all that and they could they make that happen now as you get more and more senior homie don’t play like after a certain point it’s done and you got to get you got to play the game that’s what you got to do as you get more senior got to play the game and from like your subordinates viewpoint if if they look to me and go oh jock was just playing the game he’s just doing it yes I am yes I am because this way gives me more ability to control everything that’s gonna impact you people that work for me so yes I’m gonna play the game so you don’t have to you’re welcome
My WordPress Blog