this is jocko podcast number 254 with echo charles and me jaco willink good evening echo good evening and joining us again is dave burke good evening dave good evening last few podcasts 251 with leigh babin 252 253 also with dave burke we’ve been making our way through the book guidelines for the leader and commander which i brought my actual sacred real copy not just the photocopy so dave could lay eyes on it and we’re approaching the halfway point we should get to the halfway point today no promises because there’s this book is dense there’s all kinds of stuff to unpack this is the root of the book that taught me the most about leadership about faith by colonel david hackworth hackworth references this book multiple times in about face so the book is guidelines for the leader and commander by general bruce carr bruce clark world war one world war ii korea distinguished service cross three silver stars 45 years of service as a leader and a trainer in the army plenty lessons to learn and we’re learning them we are learning them so let’s get into it chapter eight philosophies and principles of training in overseas areas this is a whole section on how do you train when you’re deployed section one the training task the missions the primary mission of all u s military forces is to deter communist aggression and if deterrence fails to defeat aggression when and where it occurs so sometimes i work with companies and they want to have a mission statement there’s a good example of a mission statement that’s what you’re trying to do this is what you can make so many decisions based on that kind of mission statement what your job is why do we exist you ever thought about that one why do i exist what am i here for you ever think about that echo charles yes you think to yourself i’m here too i haven’t come up with answer yet we’re working it make some video i don’t know press record apparently check the mission of the united states army in oversea in oversea areas stem logically from this broad u s forces mission our first commission is to ensure the readiness of u s army forces to defeat communist aggression in overseas theaters in doing so we contribute most effectively to the accomplishment of our deterrence mission additionally we have the mission to support u s contingency operations in peripheral areas the lebanon and congo operations are examples in of such contingencies these missions require that all u s army personnel and units instantly be ready to undertake combat operations this requirement provides the basis for all overseas training objectives which are presented and discussed in the following paragraph so here’s what i think you find in organizations that really nice kind of clean thing gets put out to the troops and then the troops start to do their job and they start to live their lives and they lose track of this it can happen to an organization it can happen to you as a human being you kind of forget where you’re going you forget what you’re trying to do you forget what the team is here for you forget what the mission is can’t let that happen gotta think about that stuff easy to veer off of course it’s so easy just to shh just to get off course a little bit have you ever seen you must have seen this um gulf war one go for one i’m almost positive uh helicopters are holding station they’re they’re holding station and there’s a blue on blue and they end up shooting a an apc i want to say was it a bradley i know i know what you’re talking about it’s a friendly position i thought it might even have been marine lavs maybe i might have been in l a but but it’s yeah it’s a lightly armored american vehicle yep and you can hear it it’s it’s one of the most horrific things to listen to but what happens is these helicopters are in position and there’s just a little bit of a cross breeze just a little bit of a cross breeze and so they don’t really recognize it because they’re just slowly getting blown off of their where they’re supposed to be and guess what there’s multiple helicopters they’re all getting blown off so relative to the other helicopters they’re in position and it’s the open desert and it’s hard to tell where you are in the open desert there’s no real oftentimes there’s no real clean reference points oh there’s the the mountain with the little peak next to it or there’s the river or whatever those things don’t exist just big flat open so these guys drift and the next thing you know they’re calling in hey we see an armored vehicle well there should be no armored vehicles in your area well are you sure yeah we’re sure you should engage that and not only do they engage the vehicle some of the guys get out of the vehicle they engage the guys to get out it’s it’s absolutely it’s a it’s it’s a night it’s a complete nightmare and here’s the really crazy thing when once that call goes down and the pilot realizes what he did and he says something like you can hear in his voice he’s going to throw up he’s just absolutely sick to his stomach and he says uh you know can we return to base we just we just we just engaged our friendly troops and whoever’s the air mission commander is that the right term i guess as the air mission commander says you know negative go back to station and hold for you know enemy enemy vehicles that’s where you know you still have your job but what an example of a little slow drift off of course with catastrophic results that can happen when we lose sight of what our mission is back to the book objectives of training in order to ensure effective accomplishment of assigned combat operational contingency and peacetime operation missions the training goal of u s forces overseas is to maintain all units and headquarters of the high command in a state of combat readiness this goal is equally applicable to combat combat support technical administrative type units and it is attained through careful attention to the following seven specific training objectives so you know you’re in an organization and we always think of whatever the whatever the critical mode the critical piece of that organization is whether it’s the frontline person whether it’s the front line infantryman whoever’s making the actual you know hand-to-hand combat who’s doing the work we always focus on them and he’s laying out everybody else combat support technical administrative type units everyone’s important and they all have to be trained with this mission in mind so here’s the objectives one maintain the proficiency of the individual soldier that’s number one proficiency of the individual soldiers number one number two develop a high degree of responsibility and resourcefulness in the commanders and key personnel both officers and non-commissioned officers of all units and one thing you know as i continue to read through this book you can you can sense there is there are threads there is there is remaining dna of world war one of centralized command of like obedience and you can feel you can feel some of that in there and you can also feel the rejection of that and so that’s why when he says things like hey it’s responsibility and resourcefulness right you this is to you know we need our subordinate units to take ownership we need our supported officers to take ownership and figure out how to do things that’s what that’s the number two look we want our soldiers to be proficient number two we want our leaders to be resourceful and to take ownership number three achieve on a continuing and progressive basis the effective integration of new weapons and equipment new organization and new techniques at all levels of command learning is what the marine corps came out with that manual how how legit was that yeah i mean he’s basically saying you need to figure that you need an inventive adapt you need to figure this out you need to figure this out and by the way continuing progressive basis when does that end oh that’s right it doesn’t end continuing progressive basis doesn’t end next maintain an effective fighting team of the combined arms and supporting units maintain an effective integrated team of the branches and services we need to work together and and so so combined arms what is combined arms combined arms is the use of multiple different weapons platforms all in conjunction to support each other it’s the sort of the highest form of covered move right because we got aircraft in the sky that are covering the tanks as they move in the tanks are covering for infantry the infantry are also covering the tanks actually artillery covering all people so this is combined arms it’s all these elements covering and moving for each other what’d i miss on that the piece of that too you got it right is is the intent there sooner or later the enemy’s gonna have to respond to something and when they respond to the tanks that frees up the infantry they respond to the aircraft that frees up the tanks whatever it is and the beauty of that is that all these different things you’re bringing to bear i don’t care which one is the one that ends up closing the deal i don’t care if it’s the tanks that take the final shot of the aircraft we don’t care we’re gonna work together we’re gonna create a problem for the enemy that they cannot handle they gotta pick one and they’re gonna lose to the other and i don’t care which one it is and this bring forth this brings forth one of my favorite doctrinal terms of all time which is it’s the equivalent of checkmate which is we are going to capture the enemy in the combined arms dilemma meaning there is no escape you’re either going to get killed by the infantry by the air by the artillery by armor we have you you’re in checkmate that is the combined arms dilemma where we have you one of my favorite doctrinal terms that put a smile on my face for the day also talks about i already said this one but maintain an effective integrated team of the branches and services oh yes army navy marine corps air force all need to work together develop a high degree of competence in combined and joint operations once again it’s it’s interesting teamwork teamwork teamwork all the last three of these are all about working together and and was the last one develop coordination techniques for the effective accomplishment of inter-allied operations so it’s teamwork it’s out of the seven four of them are about teamwork we have to learn how to work together understanding the cycles of training combat readiness is the joint joining of well-trained men with properly maintained equipment in an organization the first requirement is that the men of this unit be trained as individuals and as a team to carry out their combat jobs with thoroughness and speed this task surpasses all others for the commander overseas that type of clarity once again if you’re a commander on the ground and you’re looking at hey what’s my priority there you go this task surpasses all all others for commanders overseas is to make sure that guys are trained individuals to work as a team to carry out their jobs that’s the most important thing readiness training is therefore the first priority task of every such unit commander within the concept of readiness training each commander will be required to plan cycles or phases of training to meet varying situations and requirements the most conspicuous of which is an annual loss of approximately 50 percent of his personnel who will be replaced by soldiers of varying levels of training and service and look the whole time i’m reading this book and you and i had a funny conversation when i started sending you pictures of texts of like little sections of the book and you eventually sent me a text to just just cover the whole thing and i’m like i will but i you know i i there’s parts of it where i go you know what that’s not 100 applicable or i’m not really sure how that ties in and sometimes there are some points where we get to a level of detail what i found so interesting why i wanted to read this is there’s not too many you know when you hear when you talk civilian companies they’re thinking oh well you know in the army you’ve got these guys and they’re trained and they’re selected and you know everyone’s got this this baseline of training well guess what you’re also losing 50 of your people annually they’re just cycling out they’re either getting out and this isn’t even talking wartime this is just like life people move on so you’re constantly in this struggle to train and maintain efficiency and every time you train someone every for every person you train one of those one of those people that you trained leaves one out of every two people that you train leaves which is which makes it a hard job what do you got i’m already coming back to the very first thing you said which is you said the word clarity i think a couple times now and just hearing that mission statement of what we do the amount of clarity in his first comment here’s our mission we are here to deter an enemy if we don’t we’re going to fight them and kill them that’s our mission and the very next thing he says is everybody else’s role is to train to be prepared to do that that actually sounds really simple but it’s really hard to create a message that’s that clear so by which the infantryman and the person who’s running administration who seem like completely different have clarity in how what they do contributes to the overall mission that is not easy to do and this idea of communicating in a simple clear and concise manner which we talk all the time it’s really hard but from the very beginning he’s like hey this is the mission here are seven things that we’re going to do to allow that to happen supporting commanders your job is to make it happen so he’s tying all these things together and it sounds so simple when i’m hearing him say but i’m realizing how hard that actually is in an organization to get everybody to understand what it is they do to contribute if you can make your administrative folks feel like they are war fighters you have a clear mission statement yeah imagine that i have no idea how many troops he’s talking to it’s talking about overseas american troops this is millions of yeah maybe not millions but this is hundreds and hundreds of thousands of troops this continual turnover of personnel precludes commanders from programming a single training cycle common to all men as employed in a basic training center it requires a programming of a number of successive cycles which may overlap to some degree and at times may operate concurrently during any 12-month period the commander will need to place emphasis on the following cycles of training so again he’s just emphasizing the fact that you’re going to lose people you’re going to lose them all the time and that’s going to make your job hard here’s the things that you need to focus on advance individual training to improve the proficiency of minimum service soldiers or to provide refresher training for men of longer service so you’ve got to just train individuals basic unit training to improve the proficiency of crews teams and squads advanced unit training to integrate teams crews and squads into small units combined arms training to integrate infantry armor artillery engineer and other supporting units into company and battalion group exercises and then combat mission training to include readiness tests rehearsals of operational plans and joint combined training so that’s what you’re doing he’s saying that same thing over and over again you got to train the individual then you got to train that that next level team then you got to integrate them with the other teams then you got to get all those teams working together very good way to think about how you train in any organization you’re in next the need to maintain a high level combat readiness without peaks and valleys of proficiency prevents the commander from concentrating for long on any cycle before going into the next this is not to imply that a unit must perform all five cycles at one time it does mean that the commander must elevate continually the level of proficiency of his men and unit in each of these five phases of training based on this evaluation he plans his training program ideally the commander assesses the proficiency of each soldier in all five cycles and organizes his training so that individuals and the unit as a whole progressed systematically through all cycles and he goes on to explain this and and what i like about this is how often with whatever organization you’re in or whatever organization you’re leading do you actually think in a holistic way comprehensively about the methodology that you’re using to train your people the answer is probably not great so if we don’t have even a goal of what good looks like if we haven’t written down what good looks like how are we possibly going to get there going ahead a little bit based balancing unit and activities the training for combat readiness is not the only mission of the commander he must also make adequate provisions for the supply and maintenance of the unit equipment administration and discipline community relations program troop morale and welfare programs and the all these activities demand their share of resources time and emphasis so so not only do you have to train people for combat that’s great that’s your number one priority he already said that you also got all these other things that you need to handle which by the way is the same in any organization in any organization that you’re in guess what you gotta you gotta take care of the families you gotta make sure that your guys are healthy you gotta make sure that they’ve got something to distract their mind and keep them occupied continuing on the immediate day-to-day pressures of these additional functions result in a tendency to emphasize them at the expense of combat readiness needs so all of a sudden he just went from like look you got to take care of those other things you gotta get it’s like the um it’s like when you it’s like when someone goes you know i just read you know i read i read in that fitness magazine that you know rest is even more important than working out you know what i’m saying uh and all of a sudden that becomes the thing the prevailing mode is rest yes you know you know what i’m talking about do you know what you’re talking about you got that chuckle yeah well you’re over you’re looking at me because you guys said have you ever caught yourself in that combined arms dilemma no where you were kind of like well you know rest yeah is important important yeah yes i have in a way but in this way which might even kind of apply to this in in as far as a concept goes because you use that as the example if i’m working out or if i don’t feel like working out and i’m like well i did work out pretty hard yesterday and rest is important rationalizing maybe i should rest it’s not like this rest today will hurt me if anything it’ll help me right yeah a little bit complicated kind of question or statement i get it but i’m just saying it’s kind of the same thing where yeah if that starts to become the because for that moment it was the prevailing thing got it so we have to make sure that we provide ample room for rest and recovery yes sir but we can’t let that become the prevailing mode of operating yeah which let’s face it what do people gravitate towards people like to gravitate towards that couch yep the comfort the fun part the unit commander must recognize that even after the elimination of nice-to-have activities necessary functions remain which cannot be fully executed within the resources available to him his only recourse is to do first things first and i got a question like that today talking to a client well what do we do when we’re resource constrained what do we do when we don’t have the manpower it’s like oh cool yeah we already talked about did you hear me talking about prioritizing executed earlier yeah that’s what we’re talking about that’s what it is prioritize and execute it’s interesting too i used to use this quote and when i was talking to clients i’d say there’s no organization in the world that has unlimited resources we’ve worked with some companies now that come pretty damn close to unlimited at least financial resources they they have for all practical purposes unlimited resources the problem is the problem becomes human capital right you can only get you there’s only so many people in existence that have a certain job skill have a certain capability and so that becomes a limiting factor so even with a company that has more money than they can spend they could throw all kinds of money at whatever problem they have but they’re limited by they’re limited by human resources and you could even when you say look we can pay we can pay you know however many people a million dollars a year those people just do not exist and so and so there is i’ve had to modify that a little bit but the state the statement remains true there’s no there’s no organization in the world that has unlimited resources everyone has limited resources everyone every company the biggest companies in the world have limited resources that’s all there is to it and so what do you always have to do you always have to prioritize and execute you always have to prioritize and execute he must go what he’s there’s a part that i think he’s also getting at too is if you understand what that what that number one priority is those other things he talked about and he kind of did kind of a classic dichotomy hey this is important but yeah he also understands that all those things those morale welfare recreation type things what they’re actually designed to do is when we need to come back to that priority when we need to search for that most important thing investing in that is actually the best way that to have your guys have the energy to to exert themselves even more like i’m kind of thinking about like surge operations or thinking about you know when i’m on a deployment we’re supposed to go for six months and we get the we get the notification four and a half months into it you’re getting extended for six weeks and this six month deployment is now going to be closer to eight months if you’ve made that investment in your family and they are are all in because you’ve demonstrated you care about them you can do those six extra six weeks it’s no factor but when you you forsake all these other things and don’t recognize that those things are important it’s really hard to get anything extra out of your guys and this is a guy who’s obviously has experience with we’re going to have to exert ourselves at some point and when that time comes hey weekends at home with the family those things aren’t going to happen and the way for that to happen is to invest in that when you can when you have the time and resource to do it knowing that it’s going to actually come back to the thing that matters the most which is you going to do your job yeah it’s it’s a great correlation to the rest and recovery that we’re talking for physical working out if you’ve got time you need to rest because there’s going to be a time where there’s not going to rest and you’re going to get you’re going to catch a beat down that’s the way it’s going to happen continue on he must analyze his mission and determine the relative priority and degree of interdependence of the functions essential to mission accomplishment based on these considerations he must develop a program of unit activities which provides a balanced distribution of resources amongst these functions so yes you got to take care of your people to plan such a balanced program a commander must first survey his many tasks in toto t-o-t-o do you think i looked that word up like yeah i think he did i sure did yeah and it’s a word totel means everything means just what it sounds like it means everything completely so you gotta look at everything and then you can do a little prioritize and execute and then having made a complete list listing of appropriate to his command the commander should analyze the proportion of hours and manpower being given to each activity one method is to calculate the man hours devoted to each activity as a percentage of the total man hours available to the units a continuous realistic appraisal of the units man-hours is an essential part of command when the commander feels that an imbalance exists and that the accomplishment of his mission is thereby threatened he must take positive aggressive action to rectify the situation when he has exhausted all means at his disposal without correcting the imbalance then he should seek assistance from his higher commander that little trick i’ll call it a trick of man-hours that little trick of when people say we can’t get this done and you go oh how many man-hours will it take to get this done you ask that question because a lot of times they they’ve just looked at the task and made a made a gut decision but the problem with that gut decision is they could be right but it doesn’t help you because you have no you have nowhere to go because if echo if i say hey echo how long it’s going to take you to pour you know to build this block wall and you say well i don’t i can’t get it done i don’t have it’s going to take way too long okay well how long is it going to take how long would it take one man to do it but just you by yourself it would take a week okay so that’s 40 hours what if i give you three more people you know what i’m saying so digging in a little bit and figuring out how long it takes to do something that’s the data that’s the data that you need yeah he’s also telling you don’t go back to your boss and complain hey if you’re under a resource show them the information hey boss hey listen you need to get this done it takes x amount of time x amount of people i’m under staff i can’t get this done on time that’s a totally different thing than jocko dude i can’t do this man that’s too hard it’s too much work don’t go to your boss and complain if you don’t have what you need no factor we can address that but we can only address that if you actually come back to me with something that’s solvable other than this is too big of a problem for me yeah yeah that that is really what it is it’s like it’s it’s too big of a problem then i’m in the mood for it’s like that kind of situation because you do this all the time even on a small level you all start asking those questions like well well you know and then wait wait wait wait wait wait you’re being real vague here i know but i cuz i can’t really think of anything that just gave me that feeling right when you when when you said hey how long is this concrete wall gonna take i was like dang like i know that feeling where and i see what you’re doing because you’re like hey we like this is a problem that needs to be solved to me you know and you put some task on me that it’s like bro that’s just your idea like bro let’s think so instead instead of like okay let’s think through the whole thing really understand what it takes to do it you know that that process exists no matter how big and how small me i just see how big it is or estimate how big it is and i’m like i’m really not in the mood for this right now you know and then you just get to the bottom of it so it’s kind of like undeniably doable you know and i’m like i gotta do this thing man i don’t really yeah there’s a there’s a surface level way of looking at things and just seeing like what’s on the surface and going hey you know you see the tip of an iceberg and you go look that iceberg is huge i can’t i can’t handle that whole iceberg it’s too it’s too big well let’s get a snorkel and mask and look underwater and see how much ice is down there that we got to chip away yeah that can be done yeah and i kind of boxed you in sometimes oh yeah big time even that analogy right there the iceberg like i see it you’re like okay that’s the tip of the iceberg we know that iceberg is big to me i’m like yeah i don’t deal with big icebergs next like just move on and you’re like okay it’s big but you know there’s more to it than that and you’re like man i don’t need i’m not in the mood for all that part you know you seem saying it’s like that is the difference you know but at the end of the day it’s kind of like that’s how we all are naturally right where if you see a big task or let’s say you see like a goal right or something like this and you’re like yeah man i want that goal i want that you know element of success or whatever and then you start like going for it and you the moment you realize that man this is gonna take a lot more than i’m in the mood for whether it be things get boring or you realize it’s more work or you realize [ __ ] i gotta learn this new skill to even get to step two and i didn’t really account for that when i wanted that thing to begin with you start to be like oh well it’s too it’s too much you know so you so or even if it gets boring or something like that rather than analyzing and be like okay what would it take to do that oh no i could have learned this okay let’s learn that and then let’s read about you know step by step by step and most of the time in the beginning you’re just not in the mood for all those steps man you know i you just revealed a pattern of thought that i have that i realize that i do all the time and i think it’s actually very important and i’ve never really talked about it before but i think what it boils down to i look at things and i see them or i i will look at them until i understand that they are finite that means that the things are finite there is whatever that thing is i will i can get to the end of it yeah i can get to i can pull that string and i will get to the end that that thing is finite there is nothing there’s nothing that i’m going to find on earth to to attack that’s infinite right there’s no infinite thing that i can think of that i would look at is with a view of like okay here’s something i want to do oh it’s an infinite task no doesn’t exist there’s nothing that i’m going to do that’s an infinite task yeah look at we could we say it’s it’s infinite that we want to continue to learn yes that’s an infinite thing is it infinite that we want to try and uh improve ourselves and get better yeah that’s an infinite thing is there any particular task that we can come across where it’s infinite no you get a scuba mask you get in the water you dive and you will find the bottom of that iceberg and maybe you have to come back up and get scuba tanks and you have to go down there maybe you even got to get a mini sub but you can find the bottom of that thing and then guess what you can get it back up you can grab a little little pickaxe and you can start chipping away at that thing yeah yeah and then and at that point really at the end of the day like if you be honest with yourself you can come to a point and determine whether or not it’s worth it like if you go down you’re like hey we’re trying to move this iceberg because we want to do this and do that and whatever right and then you go there and you’re like dang this is this iceberg is way bigger than we thought and it’s kind of not worth it our end goal isn’t worth all that what we’re gonna expend you know think about your difference in mentality though when you see that something is finite yeah that totally changes your attitude from thinking this thing could go on forever because now your your your efforts are futile literally futile yeah but once you know that there this thing is finite this job has an end guess what i’m going to start chipping and i can i can be persistent and i’m going to make progress you know what i don’t know if this is like to the same thing but you have this thing where you know the whole idea of like doing something even though you don’t feel like doing it yes like you don’t really have that like you don’t have the you don’t have the opposite you like you don’t have that thing that tells you hey like don’t do it like if you don’t feel like doing it don’t do it if you think it needs to be done so having that quality helps that kind of situation so like okay i’ll apply it to like working out right where wait what so what’s the thing that i quote donut don’t have like your behavior changing because you don’t feel like doing something got it like so you’ll be like oh i don’t feel like it but that has nothing to do with what i’m doing you know so like if you’re about to work out and you’re like man i got this hard workout i got i got 25 sets till failure today that’s my workout with all these exercises and all this stuff if i don’t have if i only got one hour of sleep like that’s just not doable for me you know the fact that the fact is it is doable it’s gonna suck but if that’s not a factor in your thinking then you’re just gonna do it you’re just gonna the sucking part is just gonna be part of the workout kind of thing and it’s going to sort of get done so if you start thinking like that in the beginning like start asking yourself well we know that it can be done what will it take to get it done the workout and then you’re like kind of the same stuff it always like that’s the truth the same stuff it took last time you know it’ll just suck less and then boom then you have that finite thing like oh i see exactly what’s making me not want to do it and then you sort of gotta admit that to yourself yeah do you ever have like a horrible workout and then you think to yourself well okay sometimes i’ll be staring at whatever workout and i know it’s gonna suck and you know what you know what i just realized i do i go well i’ll start now it will be over in one hour and 20 minutes yeah if i start right now it’s going to be over i know what i have to do i’ll just turn off my brain it’s but it becomes a finite thing yeah i make it i use time to put a to put a end on it in my mind i won’t say oh this workout’s going to suck i’ll go oh this workout’s going to suck it’s going to be over an hour and 20 minutes it’s done so interesting yeah i do the exact i mean essentially it’s another version of that where okay when i first sort of started out i’d time my rest and i still do but i can time it in my head now way better because i’m so used to it or whatever um but if i’m like really not feeling like working out i’ll set the timer right there so it’s like the workout’s gonna be done regardless regardless of what if i don’t set the timer i’ll take a little 10 20 second more rest and then it extends it out more and becomes sort of this thing yeah but if you the timer is rolling right there you’re going to do it whether you feel like because that’s part of the workout you know okay and then you’re done and you’re just done it actually goes quicker the the one of the hardest moves to make one of the hardest movements to make in the gym is press and start on the stopwatch you know and i i i do this i’ll write it like in uh i’ll write it on social media i’ll be like him hemden hawed hesitated weighted uh stretch some more um get a little more warm like just per and it’s usually let’s face it it’s usually squats where you’re like okay well you know maybe i should just do a little bit more stretching maybe i should do a little bit more overhead squat form with the pvc just to make sure i’m good and you do all these things and all you’re doing is just putting it off and then finally i go okay you know what shut up and when i go this thing only ends when i start it can only end if i start this thing can only end if i start it that’s a good thing to say i never tried that one it can only end if it starts yes bro i’ll do stuff all like organized little things like oh man that’s kind of messy right there you know you know that’s good i’ve never gone that far dude i might do an extra couple sets of warm-up but i’m not starting to vacuum oh that’s sketch dude oh man check all right getting back to the book everything that i have said about the balancing of unit activities is doubly valid for the training program itself the most valuable resource available to the commander is his men’s time and time once lost can never be regained that’s fitting time once lost can never be regained poorly poorly prepared unimaginative or unnecessary instructions waste soldiers times worse it is boring and soon results in ineffective poorly trained individuals with no initiative or a spree the skillful commander is the one who adopts the philosophy of gainful employment for each man and one who takes maximum advantage of every training hour to ensure value received man remember all that dumb training you did in the military i do like do when they started yeah you would just do some training you just go man this is just horrible horrible what are we doing it’s a waste in this respect prior preparation and effective supervision are essential prior preparation must not be limited to determining merely what is material is to be re merely what material is to be presented and gathering appropriate training aids meetings and rehearsals should be held for appropriate officers and non-commissioned officers sufficiently in advance to ensure that the training preparation meets the desired standards hey prep for your training if you’re an instructor you owe it to the students nevertheless a commander must realize that the instructor is his most important training tool and that any time required including duty hours to prepare that tool for its job is time well spent the hours given to preparation and rehearsal of instruction will be repaid many fold in the hundreds of man hours that are saved by not wasting soldiers time with poorly presented training totally legit dude don’t waste your people’s time and if you actually want to apply decentralized command the best thing you can do with your time is train your people it’s the best thing you can do i think we talked about in the last podcast about how much you learn when you teach we’re talking about that i think on the very last one just how when you become an instructor that’s when you learn the most man when you have guys on your team that can train you want to talk about liberating yourself to do other things and people talk about how hard it is to train your instructor contra how hard it is to get your people where they need to be that is time well spent is training your trainers and i mean again everything i i know he’s where he pulls all this stuff from the experience this guy had in anybody and you asked me and i just sat there and just kind of got depressed hearing anybody that’s ever had their time wasted by a bad instructor i don’t care if it’s in school or anywhere else we all know that feeling of this is a waste of my time it’s like the most corrosive thing you can do to somebody else’s waste their time your instructors your look instructors is cinnamon synonym mentors teachers leaders whatever that’s what an instructor is those are the people that matter the most in your organization because they’re the ones actually responsible for other people’s time i i took over trade and i had a meeting and i rolled into the meeting and i had like a wheel book or whatever a little notebook and i had like four bullet points of things i needed to tell the guys and i walked in there and i told the guys what i needed to tell them and then i walked out and like one of my bros was like dude you came prepared to this stuff right and i was like he’s like you come prepared to stuff huh and i was thinking to myself well yeah i mean what what’s the alternative what’s the alternative to walk in there and really not know what the hell you’re gonna say that’s crazy that’s crazy that’s that you know what that is that’s disrespectful which i have a problem with uh there’s a chunk in here about safety obviously always important we work with a lot of industries that safety is is absolutely paramount where lives are at risk so there’s a section there about safety the success of any safety program is dependent on the quality of support and leadership rendered by all unit commanders you know it’s like oh we have a safety officer great that’s great that you have a safety officer and guess who else is responsible for safety everyone training under tactical conditions to me it is basic that all field training should be conducted under tactical conditions setting up an administrative bivouac is the easy way out but it is bad practice and has no place in the field training of today’s soldier each soldier participating in tactical training will learn to think and act in a manner fitting for combat he’ll make mistakes at first but it will be easier for him to overcome them in a tactical environment then it’ll be easier for him easier for him to overcome them in a tactical environment than an administrative one realistic combat habits developed in training will be second nature to soldiers in combat poorly trained soldier the poorly trained soldier taken by surprise without a weapon in his rare in his hand rarely gets a second chance to amend his habits so look obvious this the the connection to the military here is obvious when you’re going to go to the range or you got range time don’t bring out you know uh an rv to sit around and play video games while you’re not shooting go and set up tactical hide sites and spend time in the field and make the most of that the same thing in the business world right if we’re going to train people for a certain scenario then do it in the most realistic way that you maximize the training after entering combat commanders will find it’s too late to teach dispersion first aid marksmanship camouflage care and maintenance of equipment and the thousand and one other things that go to make up the well-trained soldier and unit it is also a little late to furnish him an adequate training background of information so if you wait it’s going to be a problem it’s the similar thing of people that think well you know if i get into a fight like a real fight right bro i’ll just go full rage you know i’ll go full rage and they think that that’s gonna make up for 18 years of jiu-jitsu wrestling muay thai in boxing right it’s not happening you you you’ll lose there’s no there’s it’s too late you have to train you have to prepare before it actually happens from a leadership perspective isn’t it crazy isn’t it crazy to think that hey uh i can just roll into a leadership situation without any training without role playing without thinking through some contingencies in my mind and things are just gonna go i’ll just know what to do why would you think that why would you think that why would you get that id in your head why would you get the idea in your head that if you got to go talk to you know one of your subordinates that had an outburst and and is upset about something why would you think that just rolling in there you’ll just know what to do why would you not think through that why would you not train why would you not prepare if you have subordinate leaders that are working for you why would you assume that if there’s a contingency that unfolds that they’re just going to figure it out why would you assume that they’re going to know how to handle when somebody flies off the off the handle why would you assume that they’re going to know how to handle when a client comes in and is having a having an outburst why would you assume that they’re going to know what to do and if they know what to do why would you assume that they’re actually be able to do it because that’s the next level right is you can do the moves all day of muay thai and wrestling but until you’re going against someone until you spar with someone until you role play with someone you’re not actually able to do it why would you assume that the answer is you’d assume that if you were dumb don’t assume that train train for those leadership situations train for those hand-to-hand combat situations next section training for good habits and discipline in battle the habits and disciplines that have been instilled in training are of supreme importance first because men in combat will do instinctively what they have been in the habit of doing in training and second because only the extra drive of discipline will enable the soldier to overcome the fear that all men experience in battle there you go supreme importance by the way this guy is not he’s not throwing words around just because they sound good or just trying to emphasize something a little bit he’s using this word it might be the only time he uses it habits and discipline are of supreme importance men will do in combat what they have been in the habit of doing in training every experience commander knows this but too often he fails to appreciate the absolute necessity of practicing only correct procedures it is essential that good habits be so deeply ingrained in each individual soldier through correct teaching and intensive practice that even under the stress of battle he will do the right thing both immediately and instinctively conversely because practice makes perfect a commander must never under any circumstances permit training errors to be repeated there you go to the question of discipline i would ask you to consider this more in the light of self-discipline because all too often the word discipline takes on the connotation of restriction overbearing authority and blind obedience we do not want an automaton we want an effective combat-ready soldier who has a keen sense of duty and who feels an obligation to his commander to the men around him and to his unit so anybody that’s questioning you know even me when i’m saying hey look you get some dna coming from world war one you get some of that you get some of that feeling that he’s sort of hey listen you know the rank structure’s important you better do it yourself there it is blind obedience no not what we want overbearing authority not what we want restriction on what you’re able to do not what we want what we want is self-discipline i’m i’m partially just enjoying picturing you reading that and the reaction you had as you’re reading that in general clerk’s book for the first time the only thing i wrote down i wrote it down before he said this is the good news and all this when he’s talking about the challenge of making real difficult and realistic training people like hard training they like hard training they respond to hard training and for whatever pushes you away from not wanting to make things difficult that’s actually what your people want when i look back and all the things that i did the hardest things i did were the things i enjoyed the most so whatever you’re feeling like i the harder it is the better it is because he talked about the end state of this is what’s going to keep your people alive and war for sure but hard training is actually what your people want funny you should say that let me read the next paragraph instilling discipline in troops is actually not as difficult as it may appear as a matter of fact the answer to instilling discipline can be given in one word training good training overcomes resistance to obedience and resentment of authority so yeah i wrote about this in leadership strategy and tactics you want to build morale in a team you got to do hard things go through suffering together that will bring your that will bring your unit together that will increase your real morale it will also increase your discipline yeah that covers the tangible things it makes them better at the skill whatever skill you’re training for but the intangible things like morale the discipline you just talked about the esprit de corp the willingness to take and make sacrifices that’s the intangible qualities that also come from that as well which is every bit as important as being really good at your job i like this guy one of the keys to successful training is developing our men into the proper attitude toward training generally our men want to do what we want them to do and when they don’t it’s usually because we have failed to instruct them properly that’s our fault a guiding principle that applies to all units and organizations is that a man must understand clearly what is expected of him merely telling him is not enough he must be instructed proper training will also foster pride and confidence in the individual a pride and confidence that will be extended to his leaders and units as well when that pride and confidence have been nurtured to a point that obedience becomes a habit and response becomes natural and willing you have gone a long way towards your goal of combat readiness as you can see habit and discipline go hand in hand a poorly disciplined unit is evidence that its commander has failed to instill proper habits through his training program right from the very start now again now you feel a little bit of lean back right a little bit of lean back to obedience becoming a habit and response becomes natural so you get a little bit of a lean back towards all right so now we’re getting somebody that’s going to be like obedience is sort of part of that discipline even though he said earlier look we don’t want automatons we do not want automatons that’s not what we’re looking for it’s not what we’re trying to that’s not we’re trying to train and that’s the last thing that i want decentralization of responsibility once he has set his goals and started his training program in motion a commander must rely upon the initiative of his subordinates g by properly delegating responsibility and the related authority a commander will foster this initiative and will enhance the development of all subordinates officers and non-commissioned officers alike i must emphasize here that this principle cannot be restricted merely to the training program but should extend to all unit activities this is it this is a decentralized command this is the fourth law of combat decentralized command it doesn’t only apply to training it doesn’t only apply to planning it doesn’t only apply to operations it applies to everything decentralized command is how you need to operate how many officers are doing the jobs of their non-commissioned officers we speak of enhancing the prestige of our non-commissioned officers but the best possible way of doing this is by giving them responsibility to do the jobs themselves while also insisting insisting that they accomplish them properly what’s giving people ownership let them do it try that with your kids make dinner make tie your own shoes clean your own room do your own laundry make them responsible decentralize that command and guess what you can do then then you can focus on getting them better training this is not to say that the commander should abdicate his own responsibility but a one-man shop of is a one-man shop is evidence of poor leadership there you go so if you’re running everything bad leadership a good commander will patiently and carefully instruct his subordinates to ensure they know what is expected he may even have his subordinates return and present their plans for accomplishing the tasks but he will then insist that they get the jobs done without detailed guidance so again now we’re back to like this leaning back towards hey i’m not going to tell you exactly what to do look i i want obedience but you go figure out what you want to do so he’s balancing this dichotomy of leadership between hey you need to put some structure in place so people know what to do but i still want you to go and figure out how to how you’re going to get it done it’s almost like you have to take the word obedience and and change what that natural reaction you have is because i hear the word obedience i don’t like that word there’s a i don’t like that word and just like you described i actually don’t i don’t want my people to feel like they have to be obedient to me and so it’s almost as if the obedience isn’t i say to do something and you do it it’s the obedience is it’s the natural almost unspoken reaction that what we need to get done is going to get done as opposed to you will do what i say because that if that’s the obedience you’re looking for you actually just hurt you’re just hurting yourself in so many different ways but there’s there’s language in here when i hear you say it might kind of get that little like oh i don’t i don’t like that but as he explains it and kind of peels that back the obedience he’s referring to isn’t i demand you to be obedient to my orders it’s i want and when he talks about decentralization i want the obedience to be we’re going to solve this problem we’re going to get whatever needs to get done i’m actually going to have you figure it out half the time yeah and i think to take what you just said and to take it one step further what obedience is and it’s everything he is saying is is leading to towards the result of what obedience is if you’re obedient you’re driving towards accomplishing the mission that’s it that’s my obedience we got a mission and i’m going to accomplish it that’s what i’m going to do yeah because he’s literally saying without detailed guidance i’m not going to tell you how to do it here’s the mission go accomplish it that’s obedience by giving them responsibility and authority and by underwriting their honest mistakes he will encourage them to exercise initiative and accept responsibility he will help them to develop into more effective individuals and hence into more effective soldiers and officers this in turn will result in a better unit that sentence right there giving respon giving responsibility and giving authority and underwriting their mistakes like hey you made a mistake hey god i got it no problem there’s no problem you’re you’re you’re encouraging them that’s how you create leaders that are going to take initiative which is exactly what you want if you’re a good leader a problem arises when individuals are given the authority to make decisions on various types of actions and then fail to use it how much time is wasted by passing the buck to the next level even though authority existed to make a decision on the spot training supervision proper supervision of training still remains primarily the commander’s responsibility a good model to bear in mind is an organization does well only things the boss checks he’s he goes over that over and over again he talks about inspections again here we covered that on one of the earlier podcasts and one thing he he does say and i’ll just re-emphasize it a word of caution is in order inspections that are poorly scheduled or executed will harass the troops and if you’re harassing the troops with your little freaking inspection you’re wrong you’re wrong that’s not what inspections are for training methods proper methods of training will produce better soldiers in less time and hence speed the building of combat-ready units a discussion on training methods invariably includes a question of the committee system versus the unit method of training which is better probably a combination of the two methods at the lowest practical level of command is the best answer decentralized command small unit commander should be responsible for the bulk of training although specialized subject or those involving a small segment of several units often lend themselves to centralized instruction by committee so that’s all good stuff if you’ve got some universal skill that everyone needs to learn hey send people to a schoolhouse for that we get that and you know he goes in through these things talks about some bad practices as well bad practices such as having men wait in line to run a lane on the assault course or having men wait behind the ready line to fire on the range you gotta eliminate those things he says and he says it cannot be emphasized too often that a man learns best by doing in every appropriate subject or element of training practical application must be stressed got to do sometimes i would get these instructors i remember especially going through close quarters combat training you know so clearing rooms and in the beginning when you’re taking a task unit through the instruction of room clearances you know you start at a very fundamental basic level and guys are doing one and two man room entries that’s they start off or sorry two man room entries and so it’s like i would get basically maybe take two platoons to do two different sections of the kill house and one of the instructors would be a guy that would focus on really explaining things a lot going into a lot of detail maybe maybe like to hear himself talk a little bit the other person maybe is a guy that’s like hey here’s what you got to do all right let’s start running let’s start doing it and by the end of the day i’d have to switch the platoons because the platoon that was doing would be way ahead of the platoon that was listening you have to freaking do stuff yeah you have to freaking do stuff would you write down um i mean you got to remember too i’m sitting here listening as you’re talking about it and i’m hearing it from you through him for the first time connecting it to the things that i’ve experienced and i’m hearing all these little there’s all these common things he keeps coming back to he’s talking about not wasting people’s time he’s talking about pushing decision making down he’s talking about giving your people authority and responsibility and then taking ownership of their honest mistakes a great way to not waste your people’s time is to not have them be reliant on you to make decisions for them and as you push that decision making down your subordinate leaders get closer and closer to the problem and their ability to solve those problems and do things that are constructive and useful for their people is them not being reliant on you and why i wrote it down is he asked the question beginning he said how many officers are doing the jobs of their non-commissioned officers how many leaders are making decisions and doing things on your team in your organization right now that you really shouldn’t be doing and the answer is probably almost all of you and if you can just have a mental exercise of let me just think for a minute of any task that i do that i really shouldn’t be doing if you’re doing that you are wasting your people’s time you’re hindering their development find a task that you shouldn’t be doing and push it down to them and then when they screw it up take responsibility and ownership for it train them better resource them better but as you push those decisions making push that decision making down you waste less of their time and just i’m just hearing him connecting all these things together and how crazy it how simple it sounds when he says it but how often we don’t do the very thing he’s describing and isn’t it strange that this is a guy that spent 45 years in the military and it well 45 years in the military whatever 50 years ago and actually a hundred years ago because he he he was got in in 1917 so 103 years ago and he spent his whole life in the army multiple wars but what we’re talking about you and i we definitely apply it to we reflect on our time in the military and we reflect on businesses right now in every single industry that we work with all the time we talk to on a daily ba how many companies do you talk to a day three four five different companies a day yeah every day me too and personnel at different levels inside those companies and all these things apply all these things apply universal there are universal truths to leadership there really are universal truths to leadership improvement through ideas research and development the army is constantly seeking ways and means to improve the training of the individual as well as to develop and improve equipment and procedures research into new and more modern methods and ideas is a continuing process various organizations both military and civilian devote all their energies to prod to projects of a research nature and he goes on talking about that applying well as to establish scientific principles to military problems these groups observe the test individuals and units over a period of time to determine the best method of performing a specific operation or the advisability of adopting a specific item being studied so he’s he looks at things not saying hey i got the answer that’s him saying look we gotta you gotta bring in experts that actually can study and see what the right answer is commanders should always encourage imagination and ingenuity seeking better ways to solve their training maintenance and management problems next section chapter 9 training the individual adjusting the soldier to his new career the individual begins his military career in an army training center or in a selected unit to the new soldier this is the front door to the army here he gets his first taste of military life this is where he is indoctrinated in the fundamentals of military service and where he forms the thoughts ideas and habits that stay with him throughout his service and that go with him when his service is terminated from this starting point in his career the soldier will develop in proportion to the effort made to put him on the right track and to the application of sound training practices during this vital period of adjustment this is something that i absolutely saw all the time and i don’t know if you would i don’t know if this would apply to uh flying jets but what you learn what guys learn in their first seal platoon they always are biased towards that as being the right thing doesn’t matter if it was right or wrong archaic or not new old they would they learned in that first platoon they always i know i always was and i had to fight against that unnatural bias or natural bias that i would have towards hey well you know this is what i learned this is the way you do it i guess the first thing you learn leaves the deepest the deepest scars the deepest trail does that happen with flying jets totally man you show up in your first squadron and the things that that the more experienced guys are saying is gospel and it’s probably not a lot different for you you know most guys that did what i did we spent our whole lives dreaming about doing it and by the time you finally got your first squadron which was the the top of the mount you’ve been climbing your whole life everything there is what is everything that’s said there is gospel because you made it to where you wanted to be and these guys that have been there are telling you that stuff is seared in your brain and the truth is it’s not all right a lot of it is is not right and it’s really hard to undo those bad habits same thing happened to me i got there first squash and people are talking that is burned into my brain is there anything that you learned in your first squadron that later you were like wow i learned that the wrong way yeah a lot you and leif do this a lot when you when you tell stories about what was unique about task unit bruiser and the uniqueness of that was was a lot less about the tactics and the maneuvers that you executed and and the weapons and things like that it was so much more about the culture the mindset and the and the the recognition of ownership and leadership being the thing that’s going to make you unique what i learned or looked back on in my in my the lessons of my first quadrant i certainly learned some things like hey that’s not the best way to run the system or the best way to maneuver your aircraft but what i learned the most in retrospect was the leadership that was either good or bad and it’s really hard to diagnose bad leadership when you’re a really young guy at least initially you’ll show up and kind of whatever’s going on there like okay this is how it is cool and you kind of get on board and it’s actually connected to to a note that i wrote when you were talking about people walking in the front door we may think we’ve got a lot of time with those new folks but they start to form those opinions very quickly you know the first couple days are just kind of clueless they’re just going to get on board but very quickly they’re going to start to take note of what’s going on around them and they’re going to acclimate to whatever type of leadership you give them and if there’s good leadership they’re going to they’re going to align with that and if it’s not they’re gonna align with that too and so the clock that you’re running with these new folks they start to move to whichever direction you push them very very quickly and my what i look back on is the lessons that i learned i look back like man i thought that squadron was really good and it really wasn’t we didn’t do a lot of these things that we should have been doing and it’s mostly centered around the things you’ve always talked about about hey you know what when we take our squadron up to fallon for for three weeks for a big fallon airwing debt you know what we’re doing on friday nights everybody’s going out to the bars on friday nights and that’s what we did and when i was in squadrons units that they didn’t do those things because they knew that they had limited window for training and they’re gonna stay and and and get better that’s when the contrast became much more clear about the things that i’d grown up with that weren’t nearly as good as i thought they were at the time and look man when you’re on the other side and you tell these stories about trade when you’ve seen 10 000 runs of the same clearance literally just thousands upon thousands it becomes very easy to see what good and bad looks like yeah the the the pid the positive identification of good and bad man i don’t know why i was paying attention to that stuff when i was a young frog man and it was you know we we showed up in the 90s man we showed up in the 90s and the 90s was after the 80s and i know that might sound funny but it’s important because the 80s there was basically no war i mean most of the 70s yeah so think about that you know like the last seal platoon in the early 70s was a 72 73 something like that last seal platoon there’s a couple more stragglers over there but then you go 70 then you go all the way to 1980 then you go all the way from 80 to 90 and you had look you had grenada a handful of guys you had panama handful of guys and by a handful you know 50 guys whatever the number is but it’s a very tiny percentage of the community and then you roll into the 90s but i’m coming off the 80s so understanding what it meant to be combat ready was a faded picture it was a faded picture and there were some guys that knew and thank god thank god some of those old vietnam guys were there thank god some of the second some of the people that had learned firsthand from the vietnam guys they were there to to to hold that line but there was also guys that were sure you know we ain’t going to war we ain’t going to war we’re going drinking totally you know we that’s what yeah and even if we’re not going drinking you know what we’re we’re not going we’re not going to war we’re going to hang out with our family we’re going to go run some side business we’re going to go do other things besides just be a team guy and and that’s a weird place to come from it’s a weird place to roll into the teams when you have these expectations like i had the i had the dumbest expectations you know i thought i was going to nom thought i was going enough in 1991 i was ready to freaking deploy to da nang you still think i still kind of do think that man whenever i talk to tilt those guys i remember asking tilt like was it hard to vlog no maybe it was maybe it was dick thompson i was like was it hard because he volunteered for this volunteered for that and i said was it hard to volunteer he was like no they were like oh you want to go to special force that’s cool right over here oh you want to go to sog cool right over here oh you want to be an officer cool right over here you step right oh yeah we got openings man we got openings why do we got openings we got openings we have more than 100 percent casualty rating more than 100 casualty rating if you show up here you will be wounded or killed how’s it going yeah there’s the line and those tilt frenchmen dick tom just rolling in just yeah good let’s do it what do you got we can’t tell you about it cool i’ll sign up when i put my name don’t do the titles for the song episodes of this podcast dead man walking don’t don’t go to sog that’s what that was the word that was the gouge did you use that term the gouge yeah totally that’s the gap that was the gouge don’t go to salt don’t go to sog and these guys are like well why wouldn’t we go to sog everyone gets wounded or cool killed oh cool sign me up yeah so i thought i was going to nom so when i get to the team and and the you know what i had to do with vietnam i got vietnam issue vietnam era h gear that was left over from thom i got that you couldn’t tell the difference when you saw me going through sqt my like the the gear that i used was vietnam gear like that’s the same gear the same canteens the same mag pouches everything was the same so i kind of was going to novel but that impression that you get in that first platoon man it leaves a mark yeah it leaves a mark and so that’s why if you’re in a leadership position and you’ve got people checking on board you’ve got to recognize that you’re making a mark don’t play around with that essential to the smooth and orderly transformation of the individual from a citizen to a soldier is the organization and caliber of the training establishment the commander of this training activity must be given the tools to work with and enough priority to ensure assignment of the most competent officers and men personnel should be carefully selected highly motivated and imbued with the standards prescribed for basic combat training a prerequisite for later command has its foundation in this criteria until an officer a noncommissioned officer has served in these capacities he is handicapped in the art of training units that’s powerful how often is it that we actually invest our best people into being instructors not often enough not often enough you guys do it the top gun does it yeah well i was thinking that you guys do it as well i mean the parallels between what you did in trade this is the thing when i got into the teams no one wanted to go to training it was hey man i don’t want to go over there i want to go on deployment yeah i want to go to nam i want to go on deployment that’s what everybody wanted to do part of the reason was because one of the ways that you got cred street yeah was by doing deployments right hey i did three deployments i did four deployments i did five deployments you were in a pecking order there was a packing order so nobody wants to get out of that cycle they just want to go on deployment deployment deployment because you want to you want to go up that hierarchy you want to be five platoons you want to be seven do you want to do as many platoons as you can as fast as you can it’s kind of funny because when the you know you’d be a new guy in your first platoon but then i was talking to a nom guy and he was like you’re a new guy until you go into combat so all you [ __ ] are cherries it’s like roger that this dude’s sitting there with six deployments under their belt but they never went to war so he’s just like yeah cherries whatever yeah cherry boys whatever keep keep it up man what a life trainer personnel will face many problems with their new soldiers trainees come from every aspect of life so this is what i think the reason i wanted to cover this part is because we work with companies all the time they hire people all the time what’s your indoctrination program how are you welcoming them aboard what are you doing to train them out of the gate oh you gotta you’re so critical to get them in the role that you can’t spare four days to set aside and get them trained up and familiarize and meet them with the right people you can’t do that it’s more important that you just get them totally blind rolling into their role that doesn’t make any sense man set aside some time trainees come from every walk of life all kinds of schooling other civilian experience multitude of aptitudes beliefs skills from this complex mixture of raw material the training unit commander has to turn out trained soldiers who are ready to undergo further training and ultimately become combat ready fighters in the army’s combat ready units during this period of his training this new soldier will have to learn how to live as a soldier with other soldiers he will learn to accept discipline to keep him physically fit to develop proper habits of eating sleeping recreation and sanitation and to live harmoniously with his fellow soldiers these things will not come easily to all trainees many will need lots of help and lots of guidance to overcome their troubles their commanders the ones who can and should give this assistance isn’t that weird to think about this is where you’re going to develop these people that have just they’re they’re just random i know i never uh i always joke about the fact that i i never flossed my teeth until i joined the navy and in boot camp they’re like you need to floss your teeth every night i was like okay whatever i’ve never i’ve lost my teeth every night since then i was just a savage that didn’t floss my teeth but that’s one of the many habits where they this is what you do this is what you’re supposed to do cool roger that i’m that kid of course i can floss some of my teeth with like a piece of rope although new soldiers are being trained as replacements for other units all training commanders will do well to look at their trainees this way these are my men i will train them as if i’m going to fight alongside them and as if my life will someday depend be in their hands that’s it that’s that’s that is one cool thing that you hear from guys that worked as buds instructors is the attitude of like hey this i do i want this guy in a platoon with me right that’s a great place to start that criteria is is is so important i mean yeah top gun we talked about a little bit maybe a difference there was there was a key in uh emphasis put on training in my community topkin was obviously a place that resembled the reflected that that apex of that training facility if you want to call it that but really what it was there was a chance to pass on information to to teach guys and the criteria for finishing that program was if you as an instructor who was gonna if i’m gonna put that top gun patch on your shoulder the criteria was would i go to war with you that was the criteria is this guy someone that i would go to war with as his wingman and again you’ve talked about it it may be a little bit more evident in the military example because we’re talking about literal war we’re talking about a guy who’s written something based on his experiences in war but the translation to anywhere in the private sector or even your own family isn’t that hard if you think about what is the criteria that really matters to you what you’d be willing to do with or for this person it doesn’t have to be war as the outcome and you’re talking about you know the investment you’re making in your people up front you can you spare can you spare a week to put this person on the right path so his his ability to be successful in the organization is a hundred times greater than if you just shoved him out there because we’re understaffed or we got to get this job done go get that person in the role yeah gotta make the the investment that you make up front will be tenfold then not making it next section is entitled the army is built on discipline when a man comes into the army he usually leaves home for the first time he leaves behind his parents his friends the inhibitions he has built up from being around those who have been close to him without the the restraining influence of these inhibitions and in the quick tempo of his new life as a trainee he is likely to slip in morals in neatness and in energy the one thing that will keep him on the right track is discipline development of discipline is the best way to re-institute the desirable inhibitions he may have lost how can commanders instill discipline in their trainees the answer can be given in one word training this is a rehash right good training overcomes resistance to obedience and resentment of authority when obedience becomes habit and is natural and willing training is paid off in terms of disciplined soldiers development of discipline can be part of every period of training during basic training commanders have many opportunities to stress the importance of these things which take which make a disciplined soldier obedience alertness neatness of dress and physical fitness the trainee will also develop a respect for commanders and a renewed devotion to his country in battle discipline is of supreme importance this is let’s see the only time you use the word supreme most men are afraid in battle but discipline produces the courage to overcome this fear discipline is a in a soldier implies a sense of duty and obligation to his unit when the soldiers of a unit share that obligation the unit has gone a long way toward the goal of combat effectiveness only one kind of discipline is acceptable it is perfect discipline when trainees show evidence of poor discipline it is generally because their commanders have failed to insist on perfect discipline from the start and that’s patent that’s a patent quote only one kind of discipline that’s perfect discipline he talks about getting to an overseas environment the new arrival should be indoctrinated in the customs of the new country in which he is stationed he should be encouraged to meet his new neighbors learn their ways study their language become familiar with their history and then he talks so i’m going to skip forward a little bit too well i got to cover this one this one other little section simultaneously with his with his new geographical environment must come adjustment to his new situational environment the transformation is one of attitude in which the new arrival must be made to realize he is no longer in a basic training or garrison situation he must now apply the training principles and garrison experience he has gained he must be made aware of the seriousness of his situation that he is in the front line of defense against aggression while there are many educational and recreational diversions overseas the commander must keep the new arrival constantly alert to the necessity of keeping himself combat ready the astute commander must be not only a leader and trainer of men but a student of psychology and human nature as well he must be able to instill in his men the feeling that they can enjoy their tours of duty overseas benefit from the experience and at the same time be prepared to assume more serious endeavors when called upon so there you go you gotta understand human nature you gotta understand a little psychology motivation for performance it has been said that man is the army’s most valuable asset even the greatest asset however becomes a liability if improperly used the american soldier must be properly motivated before he will efficiently and willingly perform his assigned tasks from this motivation develop esprit enthusiasm morale effort competition and accomplishment when i mean motivation of the american soldier overseas is best accomplished when he number one knows why he is there that’s the number one thing the number way number one way to make sure someone’s motivated make sure they know why they’re doing what they’re doing same answer i give nine times a day is made to feel that he belongs is performing primarily a job for which he has been trained knows where his efforts fit into the big picture is recognized and rewarded for success the one of those that i would say was a was a new thought in my mind was that is performing primarily in a job for which he’s been trained and i was kind of like that’s a good point that’s a good point think about when you’re when you’re doing something you’re like oh yeah this is what i’ve been that’s what i learned you know in jiu-jitsu it’s real clear right oh i learned this escape and you use it that’s just a total reward yeah how about when you learn some new technical skill on the film making and then you get to apply it sometimes you got to force it in there in many cases yeah it’s like you’ll do it yeah just because you’re pursuing that very thing right that you’re talking about yeah so when it comes naturally when it naturally occurs it’s a super positive thing big time dave how long were you in the marine corps for before you dropped a bomb on target from an f-18 uh six years six years did that feel good it did yeah did that give you motivation it’s crazy how to do the math there i was thinking man how long was it it was six years what year did you get commissioned 94 and then you dropped bombs bomb you singular you in 2000 yeah listen like you said man remember this is you were straight up you were straight up like top gun experiencing the mig right like maverick and maverick have the close flyby with the mig i’m saying that because because in 2000 how many people i look i don’t know if it’s fact but if it’s not fact it’s really close i was like the first guy in the world to drop a j damn because i had my squadron on deployment was the first squadron that had gps good deal dave burke is coming in hot but at the time spent billions of dollars developing this weapon system and you’re the guy that gets to drop it again okay do you remember the date um no but it was a month it was april of 20th 2000 okay so april of 2000 we’re going out there just just canvassing the world if there’s anyone out there that knows anyone that dropped the j damn before april of 2000 please let us know so i can put this guy over here a good deal david check yes put him in check it’s like you said though man i mean first of all at the time for me that was it dude we’re done checking the block i can i can die a happy man it’s because of what you said there wasn’t anything going on i mean you look back now you know post 911 it’s it’s i mean it is it’s embarrassing i don’t even like we talk about this all the time i don’t even like bringing it up but at the time that was it and and to get back to your your more serious point of dude was i stoked i i never felt more useful in what i was doing than that night i can picture it hitting that pickle switch and that bomb coming off my jet blowing up that that sa-3 launcher in iraq that was like the most important thing i’d ever done in my life how many people did that after you drop yours did things start to escalate well no we were you just get the one good deal dave burke look man it was kind of a cool thing at the time it really was and yeah if if i’m if i’m if i’m out of turn let me know uh there’s just not that many people out there that that is that have the potential of doing it given the systems that were required when the bomb hit the fleet and everything it was a confluence of a lot of things that just went my way so you’re saying that in the whole fleet the jade dam had just kind of arrived first of all the jdm had just arrived and what was required is a gps aircraft on my carrier there was one squadron that had gps on board which was that yes in your aircraft aircraft the other aircraft the other four squadrons couldn’t even carry the weapon and this was the first time yes and marine corps got it before navy no it’s not that the marine corps got it just so happens out of my deployment the three the navy squadron of fighters they didn’t have gps aircraft which is kind of crazy but we did so again so you dropped the first ever j dam like i said if it wasn’t the first it was really close it was definitely the first one what about what about uh what about bosnia what about sarajevo that’s i’m i’m almost positive that predates gps guided weapons that’s all laser guided some other other guidance systems that’s not gps guided weapons you’re going out on the limb i am and look fix it if i’m wrong dial in send a message i’ll be happy to give you damn’s hitting your brain yeah maybe when there’s some guys that flew into uh sarajevo dropping bombs yeah well i mean look i could definitely be wrong uh at the time i wasn’t like do you know i’m gonna add this to like your bio when i talk about you because you know i got my little you know hey he was this he was that and i’m gonna say he also dropped the first ever j damn the first ever gps guided munitions was dropped by colonel dave burke the two thousand pound jdm and tooth in the year 2000 was this brand new incredible thing that we just got trained on which it was kind of what were the circumstances that got you cleared hot yeah the circumstances were you know during the day uh i was scheduled for like a night mission just a a pre-scheduled mission that probably involved you know a handful of airplanes doing operation southern watch just kind of monitoring the airspace which we did i was on deployment right on i was on deployment yeah i was about to head home what aircraft carrier were you coming off of the stennis was the jfk did you replace the james replaced the jf i was on the jfk so i guess i missed you that’s as we’re talking that’s the other carrier that would have had the potential i think there was only one squadron on that carrier the other marine horn squadron might have had the chance so there if it’s going to happen it’s going to be off that carrier but between the jfk and us during that you know spring to summer of 2000 which was just monitoring the no-fly zone what happened was in the middle of the day on a day that i happen to be already hard scheduled we got triggered what’s called an ro a response option which means saddam did something that met some criteria that we had a pre-planned response to and what he happened to do in this case was took a sam launcher south of you know the the the parallel the the line that we were that we were responsible for so intel says hey they moved to sam site down south of where they’re not allowed to be here below this line they can’t be here and the big debate was so we got this information this intelligence the debate was hey we’re not going to let the brand new guy go on this mission this is a response option that mandates we’re going to go blow this thing up and my squadron commander was like negative that’s the schedule he’s going flying and if it wasn’t wait you were a new guy i was it was this your first performance yeah my first cruise my first deployment and the only reason i was on there was just you know every fourth or fifth night you just ended up on the schedule i was you know dash whatever of this of this mission it turns out that my flight lead yeah i’ll tell you i look i’m i’m i’m all about being fair and everything if i was the squadron commander or the squadron xo or the ops officer or one of the others or anybody else in the squad uh that new guy just broke his left heel yeah he got heal weird i don’t know what happened but i’m taking his place dude it was one of those things that the air wing had scheduled responsibility to cover the no-fly zone i was on the schedule it was going to be a totally boring night mission which we’d done all the time was just covering the no-fly zone middle of the day this happened we knew that that package that was going in was going to go from a a monitoring mission to a targeting mission the the mission loadout required a gps guided weapon there happened to be one aircraft in that formation from one squadron that had the gps aircraft and gps guided weapon i was there i was scheduled for that there was a behind-the-scenes conversation i was not part of over whether this new guy chip was gonna get to go because this is garbage because he’s brand new the squadron commander was like i’m not building a habit pattern by which because of the mission i’m gonna change the formation he’s a young guy he could go do it i went and did it i launched i joined on the wing of of some other squadron aircraft we flew north for two and a half hours i blew this thing up and i came home were you nervous i was ex yeah but not like i was nervous but not like were you super confident i knew that i was i was nervous and stoked a gps bomb i mean is this a hard job no it is not a hard thing to do as a matter of fact the beauty of this mission just to put things in context is that before i even got into my airplane i was handed the precise latitude and longitude which i pre-programmed into a basically a disc that i downloaded to the airplane so before i even took off from the carrier i my aircraft and the bomb all knew exactly where to go it was literally i’m just carrying this thing on my wing my only job was to arm it up and press the button do you did you fly flat dumb and happy like at a certain altitude or did you go come on did you kind of like hey bro i would love to tell you the coolest story in the world it’s not a cool story like i told you telling the story now is almost embarrassing because people listening now when they think about what we have done since 2001 this story is the least exciting combat story you’ll ever hear and combat should be in quotes in 2000 it was the coolest thing i had ever done we did uh we did a bunch of shipboardings in the on that deployment yeah so in the millennium deployment between 2000 1999 and 2000 we did like shipboardings overseas and one of the shipboardings that we happened to do was of a big russian oil tanker and it was on cnn and all this kind of stuff so it was kind of the big mesh kind of the same thing and just to put it in perspective when we got back so we were on the carrier and then there was another platoon from team two that was on the arg and when we got back we had to like brief the ceo and the commodore about like what we did on deployment and so we got to brief you know that we did this thing which was kind of you know at the time was pretty cool and just to put it in perspective what the other platoon commander briefed was that they did an inextremist uh propeller clearance for the arg ship like something got tangled in the propeller and they like anchored the ship and they dove down and like cut the thing off and they kind of like helped that was what they proved that’s what a seal platoon did in you know night in the year 2000 and that was the highest level thing that they did with the most visibility that they could debrief was we did a maintenance dive on the ship we were on on board yeah so that just kind of tells you how what it was like at the time were different back then man so i’m 100 i can totally uh imagine what you were feeling going into this and coming out of it yeah it was it was awesome at the time and look when i came back i mean the whole ship knew about it um there was a press release that i have a copy of somewhere that that the iraqi media put out that you know uh uh i honestly think it was like straight up a baby milk factory had been attacked you know the standard propaganda you know unarmed civilians were killed the whole story i got in the into officer kingdom hey check this out this is the report from your attack i’ve got all the stuff somewhere into your mom totally yes absolutely so it was um it was an interesting time it was a time that i had obviously none of us knew what was coming you know i didn’t know the following year how much things would change and i actually thought at that time that was probably the only chance i was ever really gonna have to do something that contributed to the mission which is exactly how i felt i felt like i finally did my job after a lifetime of dreaming about it and six years training for it little did i know that’s awesome yeah so if you’re in uh if you’re in cag nine on the stennis or if you’re in cag two on the jfk which was 251 was the marine hornet squadron let me know if i got my facts not straight but at that time there was just not a lot going on jfk did some work to ship your own too they dropped some bombs they did but maybe not gps guided i don’t think so like it really matters but call me out okay it did at the time bro i can tell you it didn’t at the time check uh legit yeah he goes through looking at these these these items to to motivate keep someone motivated um first of all a man does any task better when he thoroughly understands the reasons for performing that task surely you have heard the question what am i doing here what have you the commander done to answer this question have you made your troop information program merely a corner bulletin board in the day room have you explained to your men the role of allied forces in your overseas area as part of the united states army and what it plays in that role have you discussed with them the threat of communism have you shown them how an alert well-trained strong force in peacetime becomes a deterrence to aggression and armed conflict so that’s the why yeah and that’s the why that we talk about all the time go ahead yeah do they understand how what they’re doing contributes to the mission yeah it’s as simple as that yeah and when you’re working on the front lines of a factory look if you understand how that contributes to everything that’s happening and and what we’re trying to do that that makes a difference the only way they’re ever going to know that is if their leadership makes that a priority or else they’re going to get stuck down there and their perspective of the world is going to get smaller and smaller they’re going to feel more and more disconnected and they’re not going to understand it you have to make that happen that will not happen on its own that’s one thing that’s cool uh up at origin you know the the troops that are on the front line they see what’s happening right down to the fact that they can see people competing in their geese right they can see people working in the genes that they made they get thank yous they get you know uh pictures of the genes being worn in north dakota being worn in texas being you know being used and it’s awesome and they know that that they can feel what that means because it’s bringing back the community and so everybody understands that why it’s so important pete does a great job making that clear the second item i outlined as a motivation force is a sense belonging very few drives of a man are stronger than his desire for identification with a group when he knows what that he has wanted he has a definite niche a specific job and that his efforts contribute to the achievement of common goal then he becomes proud of himself his unit and his superiors develop your men developing your men this feeling of identification and your task will be lighter then when the chips are down and they are called upon to do battle they will perform as members of an integrated team not as individuals this brings us to the utilization demand and this is what this is this is the story of dave burke thousands of dollars were spent to train each man first as a basic soldier then as a specific mos is each man in the unit doing being used in the job for which he was trained i realize only too well that commanders must occasionally put men off their jobs to meet temporary requirements the men realize the necessity for this too too often however a commander forgets to put the man back in the job for which he’s trained the men do not understand this and such action is often demoralizing and results in the loss of unit effectiveness when it becomes necessary to assign an individual to a position other than the one for which he has been trained the commander will rise in stature if proper counseling is given explain why the temporary assignment has been made and let that man know as soon as possible he will be reassigned to duty’s commensurate with his mos one thing should be kept in mind however no amount of motivation will make a man tackle his job he knows is too big for him that’s the infinite thing where a man fits into the big picture obviously important and then goes into that a little bit and finally there’s a great deal of vanity in each of us and few things are more motivating than recognition for a war and reward for a job well done he then jumping forward a little bit he’s got a little section on physical fitness which i always like to cover the vision of a push-button war suggests that the physical rigors of the battlefield belong to the past isn’t that crazy 1963 he’s thinking that just think of that nothing could be farther from the truth physical fitness in today’s army is even more important than it has been in the past and this is especially true in overseas theaters where to meet any communist block aggression the fighting man on the ground is the ultimate weapon the fundamental factor of the decision the soldier overseas must be combat ready not only in terms of equipment training and conviction but also in terms of ability to withstand the rugged demands of physical combat the time to begin is the day a new physical a new replacement arrives in your command in many cases he will be fresh from basic or advanced individual training and it will merely be a matter of maintaining his high state of physical fitness that he brings with him in other cases you may well have to start from scratch and bring the man up to the desired standard in both instances your solution as a commander is a physical fitness program that will provide for progressive and continuous physical conditioning of your men it can and should be integrated into a phase of pro of phases of training in your program as an asset to your unit commander is the highly developed sports program and he talks about how important that is how important it is to to have these kind of programs where you’re running he talks about care of equipment got to take care of your gear he uses this little quote in here um remember the rhyme rhyme the rhyme about for want of a nail and i’ve never heard have you ever heard that before so i had to look it up for one of a nail the shoe was lost for one of the shoe the horse was lost for one of the horse the rider was lost for one of a rider the battle was lost for one of the battle the kingdom was lost all for the wand of a horse nail there’s that little thing just that little just that little thing talks about he goes into like this is where i started kind of breezing through some stuff because he’s talking about he’s getting in the weeds a little bit about how do you get people to take care of their vehicles he’s he goes through some execution charts proficiency of weapons testing the abilities of soldiers he runs into this a little bit performance testing and talks about how you’ve got to continually test people so that you know that they can do their job schooling he talks about schooling of the individuals and again this is he starts getting into some of the weeds and then he gets into professionalism and professionalism to me is um you know a word you know talk about your first experience in the military and how that leaves a mark well in 1991 when i checked into seal team one there was an underlying theme of professionalism it was hey professionalism seal team one the the nickname for seal team one was stalag team one because you know we had haircut inspections every two weeks or yeah and then uniform inspections i think the first monday of every month seal team five they we can we can confirm this with jason gardner but i don’t think they had uniform inspections in the decade so you know everyone looked at team one the stalog team won and it was this is that the underlying tone was professionalism back to the book in today’s army we can afford to keep only the worthwhile individual in our ranks every effort must be made to strive for professionalism in all things retention of the desirable and dedicated individual is the goal constant supervision by officers and non-commissioned officers is necessary to raise standards of performance a great deal can be accomplished by each individual by setting the example and being a professional himself more than any other thing demonstrated competence ability and efficiency i e professionalism will encourage new officers and enlisted men to make the army their profession what is real professionalism for the career army officer many do not understand what is meant by professionalism i submit that professionalism to the young soldier to the career non-commissioned officer to the young reserve officer on limited active duty and to the reserve officer on extended active duty is different from that applicable to the career regular army officer with 20 years of service i will explain this as i see it if you are enumerate if you enumerate the various things that have to be done in order to produce a combat ready army to meet the demands of our country in case of emergency i believe you will find that these necessary operations pretty well cover cover the field in creating an army so here’s the list of things that you have to do in order to create an army raising an army organizing the army equipping the army training the army supplying the army leading and commanding the army administering the army moving the army communicating within the army employing the army a career regular army officer who wants to prepare himself to be a professional should learn the general requirements techniques and principles of each one of these necessary operations in addition he should become a master of one and have at least one other as a strong minor and i think that’s probably a pretty good place to stop right now we could go all day with this but what’s interesting i find it interesting about that is if you’ve got 10 broad operational fields in the army and you can only be a master in one of them because we just don’t have the ability to be more than that you could be a minor in another then how can you be a professional right because i was kind of expecting him to say you need to learn all these things he says you can only become a master wanted you can only become a minor and one more so i’m thinking how do you become a professional and i think the answer is humility to actually know that you’re not a master of everything to actually know that you have shortfalls and you have deficiencies and then what you do is you surround yourself with people that are masters in those areas you build a team you build a team and that starts with humility it starts with knowing your weaknesses so you can turn those weaknesses into strengths by bringing the right people into your organization there you go echo charles yes speaking of turning weaknesses into strengths sure do you have anything that can kind of help us maybe turn weaknesses into strength technically factually actually do you know you’re known for saying the word factually i do now yeah yeah some people will occasionally just throw a just a factually like comments yeah apparently my daughter gives me [ __ ] about that as well so i couldn’t you understand what i’m saying anyway so yes okay we’re on the path right turning weaknesses in into strengths okay so the thing we don’t want to worry about is our joints so speaking of comments maybe we should just ask the question you were gone for two podcasts yes this whole sort of support section you know it was like i don’t know three minutes seven minutes something like that yeah way too short maybe people could put in the comments you know what you know how they’re feeling about that maybe they missed it yes well we’ll just say technically the support section factually as well yeah it the support section and all these fine products and services are infused into this section as a whole same scene so the section isn’t only about support it’s how to stay on the path straight up that’s what the sex section is if you want to you know get all namey naming things as far as sections go anyway thing you don’t want to worry about is your joints when you’re on this path that we’re all on you definitely don’t want to be worried about your doings no sir so chocolate supplements overall a bunch of supplements all jockly supplements called jocko fuel the joint supplements to keep your joints in the game don’t have to worry about them not to think about them don’t have to consider them when you’re doing individual specific things i like when you paint yourself into a corner and then you gotta kind of work your way out of there verbally yeah you know it’s funny because individual specific things that’s yeah nonetheless joints we’re not worried about them when we’re doing deep squats we’re not worried about joints you know why because we’re on this joint warfare super krill oil you you go on that consistently you don’t worry about none of that stuff you’re worried about your gains so speaking of gains boom mulk i know i’m skipping around don’t worry about it i got you protein in the form of dessert that’s what you take after you’re working out so boom breakdown build back up all good okay so here’s what we do want to talk about discipline and discipline go wait can i add something on the mulk scenario sure because there is something to talk about it’s a little something called smashing pumpkin oh yeah it’s a new flavor have you tried it no it literally came in when i was leaving right now it is it is at the top of my list right have you got it yet dave negative it is it just is at the top of the list right now it’s just beat everything now part of that is because it’s new and i’m sure there’s some level of hey just like the variety and it tastes good to have something different but i am i already you know pete and brian well you know it’s a seasonal thing i was like no stop this is not a seasonal thing there’s no this is this is a new this is in the game this is this is this is part of jocko fuel smashing pumpkin i don’t even i didn’t even really understand what pumpkin have you ever eaten pumpkin before like when you were a little kid carbon pumpkins you just ate some because you weren’t eating no not the raw pumpkin i did though right i was like let’s see what this tastes like it doesn’t taste like anything right basically it’s slimy that makes sense so i’m thinking what is what is pumpkin flavored milk gonna taste like slime you know i wasn’t really sure because that’s what pumpkin pumpkin has no taste kind of it’s just sort of slimy yeah so i wasn’t 100 sure but you know these guys are all fired up and they send me the sample and i mix it i was like good lord i don’t even so it’s it’s a pumpkin spice yes flavor okay there’s a cinnamon situation but what it i don’t know look does it taste like pumpkin spice maybe i’ve never really eaten anything that tasted like pumpkin spice let me tell you this it tastes freaking good it tastes real good it tastes shockingly good yeah i understand you know what pumpkin spice is right i i don’t know i kind of oh this is a thing yeah it’s a thing it’s a flavor like yes my wife will get pumpkin spice drink something right some latte or something okay so you know so yeah that’s why it’s funny when you’re like i’ve never eaten anything with pumpkin so yeah because that’s not what pumpkin spice tends pumpkin spice tends to be like drinks and stuff you know they’re trendy drinks that’s what it gets like you know the wrap for or whatever it’s a fall thing it’s a seasonal thing it’s kind of softy softy kind of thing maybe that’s why pete was all like seasonal oh yeah what else did you just say besides seasonal softy softy oh okay it’s fall it’s a fall thing because you complete my means towards you know like that oh yeah i dig it i mean you gotta have balance you gotta bounce for sure sometimes we wonder if pete listens to these parts of the podcast and i can tell if he does or does not because he i’m always busting his chops here whether he listens or not he’s kind of missing out and he can’t defend himself yeah so you either listen or you can’t defend yourself you’re called pete yeah but we know that you’re leaning towards what’d you say comfy comfy softy softy soft because i didn’t tell you he hadn’t even tried pumpkin spice yet he hadn’t even tried smashing pumpkin today oh that actually i told him and i said bro this stuff is so good this stuff is so good he goes i haven’t even tried it yet i go because he’s got a sweet tooth yeah like that guy mainlines baklava like it’s going out of style and people send that guy you know they send him like cookies and donuts and stuff just to just to torment him so pumpkin spice anyways smashing pumpkin mulk wait not anyways we’re still getting to the bottom of the pumpkin spice thing i thought okay oh we’re not getting to the bottom of it no no go ahead no no we don’t have to get to the bottom i want to know i thought it was a food yeah exactly that’s kind of my point right so you know how you were saying okay my wife you know my wife gets it it’s a trendy thing right so pizza is seasonal but it is halloween that’s a pumpkin thing too yes that that i do know okay pumpkin spice think about pumpkin pie you have pumpkin pie before yeah and again to me okay yes i’ve had it okay so like consider like and this is the closest i can get it get to it is like a cinnamon added to the pumpkin pie what kind of flavor got it you see i’m saying yeah and then boom malk all good but so seasonal is it because of fall season or is it because of halloween season you know jack-o-lanterns and whatnot well pumpkins yeah halloween just you think not the father because pumpkin spices fall that’s a fall thing you see insane all right but it’s not seasonal i quit i’m asking you about the mulk is it seasonal now or is it not seasonal can look in january or march or spring or whatever we won’t keep it in the moment because it’s too freaking good yeah smashing pumpkin i believe it actually when you mentioned it i was like dang that’s whoever came up with that kind of idea for milk like that’s pretty that’s good that’s all it is it’s really good i’m not sure it might have been my daughter who came up with the idea my daughter i said we because my daughter is into nutrition and stuff and she’s into mulk and she’s into mixing up recipes yeah sure hell yeah and i one day i was texting with her and i said hey you know what flavor do you want and one of the things that she said she wanted was pumpkin pumpkin spice which i didn’t even really know was a thing it’s a thing man yeah big time and hey hey man you’re down for it obviously you like pumpkin spice apparently so you know you’re done i don’t like pumpkin spice i like smashing pumpkin all right well there you go you know there you go either way yes okay so plenty other flavors too by the way so all good malt protein formula of a dessert and in the form of some pumpkin spice boom there you go monk is good um also okay i skipped around a little bit we usually talk about the vitamin d that’s important too now the season’s changing you’re not gonna be outside that much getting sun oh great i’m saying so boom you want to be sure you got that kind of stuff also cold war it’s free immune system vitamin d is good for your immune system too but boom in combo same same deal you don’t got to worry about your sickness let’s face it i think everyone should be upping their immune system at this point in the world i think in time yes that is my there’s plenty of reasons there’s one big reason get that immune system kicking yes sir it’s true also chocolate white tea get that in bags and in cans what’s up with the cans well what’s going on right now is we we may have initiated a little bit of a war in the drink world in the in the canned drink world so where there might be a delay in getting jack a white tea back in the game we’ve been we’ve been drawn into a there’s been there’s been a declaration of war against jaco discipline gokans yes yes so we’re it’s it’s on i’m not going to talk too much detail but let me just say we are at war and and look it’s one thing when you’re kind of down there and you’re scrapping and you’re you know but whatever you’re just having a good time but then all of a sudden you realize you you’re at war yeah and so we had some events unfold that some some big actors have taken action to attempt to suppress our people yeah so we’re gonna have to fight yeah oh yeah yeah look forward to hearing more about that one plans and whatnot nonetheless you did mention discipline go so discipline jocko discipline and discipline goal discipline is the powder discipline go is the cans and pills and capsules by the way but we’re talking about the cans rtd and all ready to drink right this was for yep ready to drink deploy um okay a health a healthy actual healthy energy drink actually healthy though not the kind like no no no actually healthy yeah actually healthy good no preservative no nothing okay available in wawa vitamin shop and online boom speaking of war so check this out part of this war is driving and crushing the enemy so we’re not in all wawa’s yet we want to and by the way wawa is just the beginning but we got a crush so check this out so right now we’re only in florida the florida wawa’s we have like a battle map especially now that we’re at war we have a battle map if you’re check this out if you want to support the cause go to wawa in florida and just clean out just get yourself some discipline go get yourself some discipline go and help us win the war appreciate it also vitamin shop you can get it there if you don’t have a wawa near you also com origenmaine com and let’s face it also amazon yes yep available yeah prime you mentioned originbean com other stuff on orgymain com jiu-jitsu stuff yes we’ll say everyday stuff to wear jeans specifically american denim it’s a big deal american denim also boots on there real good stuff um yeah go in there get something man if you want something american-made stuff it’s not like that’s not a big deal yeah by the way you may have been looking for delta 68 jeans they were unavailable for a while they’re back we’re we’re catching up right now and they’re freaking awesome and i have a confession to make you know how i’m always like you know i mean i literally have written books about putting your people out of you and taking care of the people and all that you already know they come fast so there we kind of re-engineered the delta genes a little bit we re-engineered the fabric a little bit we re-engineered the cut and so pete sent me like the we we went back and forth like three iterations finally sent the iteration like recently yeah he sent me like okay this should be it i put him on i sent him a text i’m like execute send me two pairs immediately put me above everyone else’s weight i got a package so i have i’ve all my other genes are in the garbage because now it’s just delta delta 68 the best things ever um yeah totally good to go so if you want those you can get those what’s funny is like now you’re not too mad at pete for his design and fashion it’s functional design functional fashion can we say functional fashion yeah sounds good good job pete man keep up keep being you pee great guy anyway also we have a jacquard has a store it’s called jocko’s store got some i swear if you want to represent you want discipline equals freedom shirts hats hoodies some board shorts on there boom all that stuff i’m wearing them right now by the way oh yeah but heavy rotation oh yeah camouflage and black well some other ones on there too some good stuff you say we’ll have other ones on there you will have other ones on there oh dang oh yeah look at you sure decentralized commands oh man oh yeah we’re doing the best uh we can over there anyway yeah some good stuff on there christmas is coming up maybe not this month but soon see i’m saying i’m just saying there’s there are good gift items on there you know yes so dracostore com if you want something get something don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast because echo charles thinks you should don’t forget that we have some other podcasts one’s called jocko unraveling which echo should be putting out some episodes it has its own thread it has its own thread now feeds his own feed so if you want to get the unraveling podcast it’s on its own feed that one you can subscribe to to make sure you’re getting them when they come out there’s we have some in the bank let’s get them out okay i’m not talking to everyone else echo charles i’m just talking to you right now this isn’t like this isn’t a kind of a universal statement to the people this is the most statement for one person yes sir we have episodes in the bank we don’t want them in the bank we want to spend them we want to get them out to the people i understand fully is that what’s the man hours that it takes to get that down uh roughly what point two okay an hour so maybe it’s something we could make happen that’s very possible yes uh here’s the thing about that though okay so the the unraveling podcast used to be called the thread it used to be so if you’re subscribed to the thread if you were and then it’s in your like libra i don’t know the different sections yeah and then i’m talking about um like itunes podcast or whatever i’m not sure if it works for stitcher i’m not sure it might very well but it’ll be in your library still but you’ll when you click on there it won’t indicate that you’re subscribed so you just got to click it again okay so you don’t have to go search for it is what i’m saying if you were already subscribed but you know if you’re not then yeah go there so the unraveling the jocko unraveling podcast subscribe to it it’s me and daryl cooper grounded podcast warrior kid podcast we have a youtube channel if you want to see what good deal dave burke looks like uh or if you want to see what echo charles looks like if you want to see what i look like or you want to see some enhanced videos that echo puts his effort into allegedly and a lot of the videos you got to remember some people they go oh you know echo good job and they always forget that echo might be the guy that pressed the record but i’m the assistant director to these videos there’s no the i’m the the kind of the the glue that brings it together assistant director that’s me so keep that in mind if you want to see videos that have me as the assistant director subscribe to our youtube channel hey we got an album called psychological warfare a bunch of me talking about how to overcome whatever problem you’re dealing with flip side canvas dakota meyer making awesome things to hang on your wall bunch of books about face by hackworth i wrote the forward to the newest edition leadership strategy and tactics field manual discipline equals freedom field manual brand new version is out right now way the warrior kid 4 field manual is out right now i just brought the first copies in one for dave and his kids one for echo and his kids way the warrior kid one two and three are out mikey and the dragons just got elected selected on amazon com as a teacher’s pick teacher’s pick kind of a big deal yeah oh yeah kind of a big deal very cool so thanks all the teachers out there that selected mikey and the dragons to be a teacher’s pick on amazon com extreme ownership and the dichotomy leadership where it started also we have echelon front it’s our leadership consultancy where we solve problems through leadership go to echelonfront com for details we also have ef online which is online interactive training for leadership is a skill for leadership remember not sitting there earlier saying hey why would you go into a room if you haven’t trained why would you think you could know how to have a conversation if you had good yeah it takes training we know that so we made online training ef online if you want to ask dave a question if you want to ask dave if you want to ask dave about dropping the first j damn in history and what courage it took to do that then you can go to efonline com and monday wednesday friday we are live we are there we’re answering questions if you want to know how awesome it was when i was doing shipboardings in the gulf overcoming fear to board these smugglers vessels no but seriously if you want to ask us questions you want to talk about leadership go to ef online com we also have the muster there’s only gonna be one muster this year it’s in dallas texas it’s december third and fourth check out extremeownership com we’ve got we’ve got social distancing covid protocol in place we’re not going to do jiu jitsu we usually do judiciary last night but what we’re going to do instead of jiu jitsu we’re going to do a jiu jitsu philosophy course of instruction q a myself and another black belt will be there maybe two other black belts one of them will be echo charles i’ll probably get another one yeah i’m going to talk about jiu jitsu how those how the gg2 principles apply to life and i’ve been doing some writing about jiu jitsu which should be coming out shortly so i might read a little precursor of that and then ef overwatch if you need executive leadership inside your company go to efoverwatch com we have military veterans that understand these principles that are ready to go to work if you’re a company that needs veterans go to eforewatch com if you want to help service members active and retired their families gold star families around the world then check out mark lee’s mom she’s got a charity organization mama lee it’s called america’s mighty warriors and if you want to donate or you want to get involved then go to america’s mighty mightywarriors org and if you find yourself thirsting for more pain and you want more of my droning drudgery or you want more of echoes farcical folklore or maybe you just want some more of dave’s overzealous zingers then you can find us on the interwebs on twitter instagram which echo will only refer to as the gram and on facebook dave is at david r burke echoes adequate charles and i am at jocko willing and thanks to general bruce clark and colonel david hackworth for leading our nation’s best in combat and for passing on those lessons to us and thanks to all the people in uniform out there right now putting those lessons to use keeping democracy and freedom safe in the world and to police and law enforcement to firefighters paramedics and emts dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service and other first responders thank you for keeping us safe here at home and everyone else out there remember what you have heard from general clark remember what he said that it all starts with discipline the army is built on discipline but so so are us so are we as individuals general clark said that the one thing that will keep a trainee on the right track is discipline that’s the one thing the supreme thing so maybe we should be more disciplined and maybe we should stay on the right track maybe we should stay on the path every single day by getting after it and until next time this is dave and echo and jocko out
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