Jocko Podcast - 106: Be Clear In Your Mind What You Intend To Achieve. "We Were Soldiers Once... And Young."

Episode Date: December 27, 2017

0:00:00 - Opening. 0:03:42 - We Were Soldiers Once... And Young. 1:41:43 - Final Thoughts and take-aways. 1:52:40 - Support: JockoStore stuff, Super Krill Oil and Joint Warfare and Discipline Pre-Mission, Origin Brand Apparel and Jocko Gi, with Jocko White Tea,  Onnit Fitness stuff, and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual.  2:10:37 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 106 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Now, in podcast 105, we finished just as the 17thalb flew out of the Idring Valley after keeping it together during a vicious three-day fight where they suffered. Some massive casualties. 79 killed in action, 121 wounded. And on top of that, the battlefield was littered with enemy dead, with the estimates of enemy dead to be between 500 and 1,000.

And we stopped there where the 17-Cav left the battlefield. So if you haven't listened to 105 yet, go back and listen to that before continuing with this podcast, 106. because even though the one seven left the battlefield, the battle wasn't over yet. And one of the events that I didn't really talk about in the first I drank podcast on 105 was the fact that two other battalions had arrived on the ground to reinforce the 17. And it was the second battalion fifth cavalry commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Tully. and the second battalion seventh cavalry led by lieutenant colonel Robert McDade.

Now, most of the battalion's men from those two battalions had landed at LZ Victor, which was about two miles away from X-ray, and they had patrolled to X-ray on foot, arriving for the most part without incident. And then things seemed to settle down a lot on X-ray, one seven left. And once one seven had left the battlefield, two seven and two five were still there. So at that point, that portion of the battle was over. And two seven and two five could have likely been extracted via helicopter pretty securely, just at one seven had been.

It seems that General Westmoreland did not like the idea of two seven. 25 pulling out. He thought that that would appear as a retreat. So he ordered that 25 and 27 secure LZ X-ray for the night. And then the next day they would move by foot patrol to another LZ called LZ Albany, which was about 2.5 miles to the north. And then B-52 bombers were going to rain down bombs on LZ X-ray in the surrounding area. They didn't expect a lot of resistance because things had settled so much down so much on LZ X-ray that if you remember even towards the end of the last podcast, there was reporters came in and landed at LZ X-ray and were doing camera shots and interviewing people.

So it was pretty settled down. They felt like it was over and they didn't expect much resistance on this movement from LZ X-ray to LZ Albany. So let's go back to the book. The book is We Were Soldiers Once and Young by General Hal Moore and Joe Galloway. And like I said, there wasn't much resistance expected. And here's what it says in the book. The word among Bob McDade's troopers was that it was going to be a walk in the sun. A stroll over to another landing zone where the helicopters would come in and extract them,

the first leg of the journey home to Anke Base. the word was wrong. And these guys, even though there hadn't been much fighting going on, they were actually a little bit tired because they had been awake on the ground. So here we go. Just before Alpha Company 2nd Battalion moved out, its commander, Captain Joel Sedini's put out an unusual order. His executive officer, Lieutenant Larry Gwynn,

who we're going to hear a lot from, Lieutenant Leary Gwynne remembers it well. The company had been on 100% alert for over 52 hours. We were in such a state of exhaustion that Captain Sedinus directed that each man take two APC tablets, aspirin with caffeine, a move designed to increase the mental alertness of the troops. So there you go. Take a little caffeine, little aspirin, get your heads in the game because they've been awake for a long time. And again, they're not expecting much, but they still been on the ground in a hot, LZ for a while.

Back to the book, Lieutenant Alley, the battalion's communication officer, was with headquarters company. We were told that this would be a tactical move. There was a lot of stuff on the battlefield. Equipment, supplies, captured stuff that had to be policed up and blown up, all in a hurry up situation. I was personally carrying an RC-292 antenna in addition to my regular combat load. I weighed about 140 pounds.

My normal combat load was 40 or 50. pounds. The 2-9-2 antenna weighed 60 pounds. The temperature must have been 96 and the humidity was the same. We were moving as fast as we could through the elephant grass and scrub oaks, some high canopy. We were humping. Everyone was as tired as could be. So we're already in a rough situation. We've been on the ground for 52 hours and we're going to move two and a half miles doesn't sound very far but when you're carrying so he's already he's carrying a hundred pounds his 40-50 pound combat load plus his antenna and everyone else is carrying all kinds of extra stuff that they're pulling off the lz it's 96 degrees out 96% humidity and

walking through the jungle is never easy it's up and down little terrain features uh going through various foliage is hard so this is not easy not the biggest guy too by the yeah 140 150 pounds which guys were smaller back then yeah but Still 100 more pounds. Yeah, no, 100 pounds. That's no joke. That's no joke. Back to the book, Lieutenant Gary Gwynn of Alpha Company says,

The Jungle Around Us Got heavier and heavier. That's when things got a little scary. There was a sudden absence of any air cover. The guys were silent, and I wondered where our heloes and our aerial rocket artillery ships were. We had not changed formation tactically, but physically we had to move in much tighter to maintain visual contact because of the undergrowth.

The terrain forced our flankers in. So at this point, they had a bunch of air cover. They don't have any air cover right now. And now the terrain is making them get closer and closer together. Because if you and I are on patrol, I want to keep you in visual range. I want to be able to see you. And so if all of a sudden there's elephant grass, well, the only way to keep visual of you is for you to get close to me

and for me to get close to the next guy. And so everyone starts to compress. And he's talking about the flankers being out there. A lot of times when we patrol in formation, you'll put people out on the flanks within visual range, but they'll be stretching the visual range. But they're out there to make sure that there's no one sneaking up on you. And so it's getting dense now to the point where they can't keep their flankers out.

So now you're losing some of that flank security. Back to the book, Gwyn says Alpha Company's column order integrity had been good until two prisoners were captured and everything came to a sudden halt. When I arrived, Soginis was interrogating the two. They were in mint condition, new weapons, grenades, new gear, but both were feverish, terrified, and shaking. None of us in company headquarters had seen a live North Vietnamese up close.

These were not the last we would see this day. We gave them water and advised the battalion headquarters. So all of a sudden they got a couple of prisoners. Little scary to me when the prisoners that we take have brand new weapons, new grenades, new gear. I mean, we at least know that they're fresh. Maybe they're not combat hardened, but we know that they've got some good, well-supplied, which is a scary thing in this type of war. So this is kind of we're looking back hindsight, of course, being 2020.

This is an error or a mistake that gets made right now. And of course, mistakes happen all the time And they don't get capitalized on by the enemy Sometimes by luck, sometimes by skill of the enemy This is one of those mistakes that It gets capitalized again, whether it's by luck or plan Probably by luck, maybe it's a little bit of both You wouldn't think much of it if things didn't go the way they did

You know, Laif and I used to have this conversation a lot I mean you don't know when things are going to go wrong And seriously you can be on the battlefield field and you can you can say hey everyone go left and everyone goes left and everything turns out great or you can say everyone go right and everyone go right and everything turns out great if you go left and you happen to go to where the enemy was waiting in ambush for you to go now you're you're you just made a bad tactical call the thing that made it a bad tactical call is that the enemy happened to be there right you couldn't know that and if you'd been if you'd said go

right you'd made the greatest call ever because the enemy was over there waiting for again you don't know where the enemy's going to be. You don't have that luxury. So sometimes you make the best tactical decision you can make and it turns out bad. Now we can look back at this hindsight being 2020, of course, and critique what's about to happen. So we'll talk a little bit more about it. Here's what goes down. Back to the book, Captain George Forrest, commander of Alpha Company First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry, was more than 500 yards to the rear. So these guys are in a long column of March group of people. McDade asked all the company commanders to come forward.

So McDade is the company is the battalion commander. And he tells all the company's commanders to come forward. So he's, McDade's up at the front of this column. And who knows how big they are. You know, he says he's 500 yards to rear. This whole thing probably spanned out, probably 6, 700, maybe even 800 meters.

We're getting close to a kilometer and length of people just spread out. Just so everyone understands. It's hard to control 40 guys in a line of March with any kind of control that's spread out over 200 meters. That's challenging. You get 500, 600 guys spread out over almost a kilometer. We have a serious command and control issue. So now what he's doing to overcome this issue is telling all the company commanders. So there's three companies that are out there.

Actually, there's more than that. But there's multiple companies out there. He tells all the company commanders, hey, come to my position at the front of this thing so we can talk about what's happening. Back to the book. Captain Fezmeier, the Charlie Company commander, was also moving up the column toward McDade's position. With him were his two radio operators, his artillery forward observer, Lieutenant Siddy Smith,

and his radio men, as well as first sergeant Franklin Hans. So I want you to think about that. Or let me explain this to you a little bit more. Here's the Charlie Company commander. He's moving forward. So he's leaving his company. And with him, he brings his two radio operators. So who does that leave with the company?

There might be one platoon guy left that's a radio operator, maybe one in each platoon, but he's pulling the communications node out of the company right there. He brings forward his artillery observer. So this is the guy that's going to be able to place artillery. Other guys can pick up the slack, but not as well as this guy can do it. He brings Lieutenant Sidney Smith and his radio men. So that means that, so sorry, the artillery observer is Lieutenant Sidney Smith, but that guy brings his radio men as well. So there's another guy out of the loop.

And then the first sergeant, the company first sergeant. So now that's the leadership. The company leadership is now from Charlie Company, is now gone. They're moving up forward to talk about it. And so here, they give a kind of an overview of what's going on. And here it is. This is what, back to the book, this is what was happening. Sudini's Alpha Company was moving forward toward the Albany clearing.

So they've, they've now approached, they're kind of approached this LZ Albany. That's what they're talking about, the Albany Clearing. Alpha Company, the Sujini's Alpha Company was moving toward the Albany clearing. Colonel McDade and his Battalion Command Group were with Alpha Company. The other company commanders had left their companies under orders and were moving up to join McDade for a conference. So the other company commanders are not with their companies anymore. The battalion was strung out along the line of March for a distance of at least 550 yards. So half a kilometer.

The men of Delta Company were lolling around on the ground. Charlie Company had flankers off to each side but were mostly taking a break, sitting or lying down. George Forrest men at the tail of the column were in a wedge formation and also had flank security posted. The men of battalion were worn out after nearly 60 hours without sleep and four hours of marching through difficult terrain. Visibility in the chest high elephant grass was very limited. Bad situation to be in. Here's Lieutenant Gwynn talking. We had been there a short time five minutes when I heard some rounds fired near our first platoon.

I thought they must have caught up with those NVA stragglers. Then everything opened up. Opened up. The firing just crescendoed. They hadn't found the stragglers. They had run right into the North Vietnamese. I was out in the grass away from the trees when it started. The rounds were so fast and furious overhead.

They were knocking bark off the trees. I ran to them. One round struck the tree I was crouched next to an inch over my head. I said, holy shit and ran to join Joel. We all got down. Then I heard this sickening wump of mortar fire. landing where I had seen our second platoon disappear the most savage one-day battle of the Vietnam War had just begun the second battalion seventh cavalry had walked into a

hornets nest the North Vietnamese Reserve Force the 550 man 8th Battalion 66th Regiment had been bivouacked in the woods off to the northeast of McDade's column so you've got fresh soldiers that had been waiting they were the reserves that whole earlier battle in the I drank With the one seven calf, this this Vietnamese group the 66th regiment eighth battalion 66th Regiment had been waiting in reserve and now they just so happened to be in the line of March where these where the two where the two five is coming through or sorry the two seven is coming through here's what Colonel Anne who again this was the Vietnamese commander here's what he had to say I think this fight of November 17th was the most important

important of the entire campaign. I gave the order to my battalions. When you meet the Americans, divide yourself into many groups and attack the column from all directions and divide the column into as many pieces. Move inside the column, grab them by the belt, and thus avoid casualties from the artillery and air. We had some advantages. Now, let me just talk about that one real quick. Okay, two things. First of all, get the battalion split up, right? And if you hear, and I always talk about the common theme of keeping things together, keeping people consolidated, keeping your groups where they can mutually support each other, his goal is the opposite of that. Get them split up so they can't support each other. That's number one.

So contrary to that, what you should always be doing as a leader is trying to keep your forces as consolidated as possible so that they can maneuver well together and most important support each other to cover and move. Now, the second part of this is move inside the column, grab them by the belt, and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, and, you know, and, and, you know, and, and thus avoid casualties from artillery and air. That's something that we still see to this day. We talked about it with the Cheshion conflict. That was the Cheshans mode of operandi, modus operandi to take, to get inside and be right next to the Russians. They called it hugging.

They would get in there and get in the same building as the Russians. So you can't call fire on your own building. So that's what the Vietnamese were trying to do. Now what's beautiful about these statements, think about these two statements. This is beautiful. commander's intent. Here's all I want you to do.

Split them up, get close to him. That's what I want you to do. He's not saying how to do. He's not telling each individual group where to move and what to do. He's saying split them up and get it close to him and stay close to him. This gives the guys on the battlefield

incredible flexibility to execute that plan. Back to the book, we had some advantages. This is on continuing. We had some advantages. We attacked your column from the sides at the moment of attack. We were waiting for you.

This was our reserve battalion, and they were just waiting for their turn. The 8th battalion had not been used in fighting in this campaign. They were fresh. Spec 4, Dick Ackerman was the right flank point man in the recon platoon, which was itself the point of the battalion. Says Ackerman, we were going to the left to a clearing. We had gone about 100 feet when we heard some shots, then more shots, and finally all hell broke loose.

The main brunt of the attack was right where we had been standing just a few minutes before. We hit the dirt. I was laying in the middle of a clearing, and bullets were kicking dirt in my eyes and breaking off the grass. Ackerman's first sergeant was standing, shouting, and giving directions. His shirt was off, and he was in a t-shirt. He lifted his left arm to point, and I could see where a bullet had ripped open the side of his arm and part of the side of his chest. He was still giving orders. We were then ordered to another part of the circle that was weak.

It was facing the main area of attack. There were people running everywhere. We couldn't just open fire in that direction because our guys were there. We were on semi-automatic and picking off whoever we could be sure of as a target. So this just turns immediately into chaos. And again, this is why consolidation of your forces is so important because the minute you have enemy in between you and other friendly forces, your field of fire is completely shut off and you're likely, when you're, when you are pulling the trigger, you have a good chance that you're going to shoot some of your

own guys. So that's, again, why consolidations of forces is very, very important. Now, I say this all the time. I'll make the caveat again. Are there times where you can get away with splitting your forces and are there times that it makes sense? Yes, absolutely. There are times that it makes sense.

And we did all kinds of operations overseas where we had different units out on the battlefield that were split up and maneuvering from different areas. We did it all the time, but you have to know and understand the risks. You have to know and understand the risks of splitting forces, of having enemy in between, of trying to consolidate back together, which is very, very difficult. You just have to really think about what the risks are and how you can mitigate those risks. Sometimes you can do it with a terrain feature. You can put guys in a certain area where, hey, I have free fire because you're down behind a knoll

or you're in a ravine where I know that I can't shoot you, that's the type of thing that you can do to mitigate. But it is something that people think they can get away with. And, you know, a matter of fact, we were doing FTX. Sure. And it was interesting. We had one of the females during the planning phase. We have them plan just a couple operations just to sort of get used to planning before we start the actual FTX.

this is for those you don't know we have a company called Eschleon Front and sometimes we do field training exercises with the companies we're working with to get them to help instilling them the fundamental principles of combat leadership so it was funny this this one female she had come up with this plan

and they were going to enter this target building from two different directions talking about the classroom portion yes the classroom portion the day before and she Actually, I said, you know, we've said keep it simple and it can be a little bit confusing if you start entering a building from two different sides and you're now you've got guns pointed at each other and you know, you've got to be careful that you don't shoot each other. And and she literally said, I just don't see how it's going to happen that we could go into this building and we're just going to start shooting each other. Yeah. Of course, I smiled on the inside and said, okay. And, and, and, And literally the next day during the FTX phase of the training, which we're using airsoft weapons and you're shooting at bad guys,

they came up with a plan, entered a building from two sides, and she entered the building and literally shot one of her own people. She did exactly what she didn't think could happen. And that's what people have to understand. Now, you might think, oh, well, it's this girl or this female, and she was she's not a military person and it's you know that's why it happened no i saw seals do it on the regular you're all hyped up yeah you go in that room you see a person moving crack yeah crack them

fire a couple shots and then you've realized what happened so so that's what's going on here split forces things are going crazy now here we go acrimans back to the book acriman's recomb platoon leader, Lieutenant Payne. He says, all hell broke loose up along the north side of the LZ. I turned to my right and observed some American soldiers moving toward the northwest to set up positions and they went down in a hail of bullets. Within minutes, we were all under heavy attack and my radio operator and I were pinned down in the middle of the LZ with the most of the fire coming from the north and northwest.

Lieutenant Payne's radio opera came alive as the Alpha Company platoon leaders reported heavy fighting. Pain says mortar rounds began falling which was a new experience to everyone since we had never had any kind of mortar fire against us. The noise level was unbelievable. I remember pressing my body flatter against the ground than I have ever been in my life and thinking that certainly the highest things sticking up were my heels. Mortars continued to fall in small arms and machine gun fire continued at a hectic pace. Finally my mind seemed to adjust and I once again began to think about the situation we were in and what we were going to do. So you see, there's a leader.

He's pinned down. And this is something that the insurgents in Iraq would do as well. They're going to hit you with multiple different weapon systems in a combined coordinated attack. So if you can imagine, if you start hitting people with mortars, well, everyone needs to get down. You need to get down. You need to take cover. While you're taking cover, that's cover, they're going to move. They're going to maneuver in.

They're going to maneuver in with heavy. weapons or they're going to maneuver in with an assault squad or they're going to maneuver in with a vehicle-borne IED. So this is same thing happening here as you're getting mortared, which these guys aren't used to, which not that there's that much you can do to get used to it because it doesn't matter. It doesn't help you defend it. You can be used to it. You still have to get down. You still have to take cover. These guys are taking cover. And what I found interesting about this was you can see in his mind for a couple seconds, maybe 30 seconds, he's just going, holy crap, I'm going to die.

And then finally, he says, my mind seemed to adjust. And once again, he'd be in, think about the situation we were in and what we're going to do. Now, this is where combat experience is helpful. If you haven't been in this situation before, it's going to take you a few seconds to adapt and be like, oh, dang, I need to do something. If you haven't been in that situation before, you could end up with some, you're, it's going to take you some time to adjust. And it's like we talk about with self-defense with jiu-jitsu. If you've never been grabbed before. Yeah.

and you've never been ground on before. You've never had someone pull you before. Your mindset takes time just to get through that before you even start thinking about actually defending yourself. You're just getting used. You're just saying, oh, crap, why is this happening? However, you train all the time. Then you're used to it.

You go, oh, okay, someone's got me. Here's what I'm going to do to get out. Same thing with getting punched in the face. If you've never been punched in the face before, it takes them getting used to. You're going to get punched three, four, five times before you're like, wait a second, I need to defend myself.

If you've been punched before, boom, oh, I just got punched. Here's my reaction. Here's what I'm going to do. And, you know, speaking of Jiu-Jitsu, going back to getting inside, that's the same thing, getting close to someone, what they were trying to do, what the North Vietnamese were trying to do, get close, stay close. That's the same thing that Jiu-Jitsu is. You're trying to avoid the big punches.

You get in close, you stay close. You keep the person close to you. That's how you avoid getting knocked out. Same thing. So train, train hard. Back to the book. Alpha Company's Alpha Company's commander, Captain Sugenie's,

was in the trees headed to where he had seen the battalion command group disappear. Just as I noticed a small clearing up ahead, I heard one or two shots to my rear, back where my first and second platoons were. I looked back. There was a pause of several seconds, and then slowly all hell began to break loose.

I remember we were reading the book by Ernie Pyle, and he talked about the expression. and all hell broke loose. Because we just heard it like five times. And he's talking about how it gets overused, but it's real. And you can tell with these guys, it's just absolutely real that all hell is breaking loose. And I want to say this too, because I didn't mention this about Dade. McDade, who's the battalion commander.

McDade is the battalion commander. He had just taken over the battalion like a few weeks before. And he had moved from some admin position inside the, inside the, the, the, the, I don't know if it was inside the battalion or inside the brigade, but he had moved from like a sort of an administrative position into battalion command. So in other words, he wasn't in charge of any troops and then all of a sudden he was in charge of troops. And then three weeks later, they're going into combat.

Now, that being said, he also said that this guy hadn't been in charge of any troops in like 10 years. So he, he had apparently done his platoon commander and his company command in World War or two in Korea. So McDade is an experienced combat leader, but he's out of practice. He's out of practice. And probably more important,

or just as important to being out of practice, is he just took over. So part of being a battalion commander is that you train and prepare your troops for combat. You get to know all your men. You get to understand their weaknesses. You just can't jump in and take over and all of a sudden have the knowledge

that you would have if you were preparing everyone. That's why training is so important. That's why we train. Yeah. So if you are, if you are not given the opportunity to train and learn your troops, you're at a huge disadvantage. You're,

and you haven't had time to train them up to your standards. You know, this guy was in World War II and Korea. He understands combat. And so to think that he wouldn't put his guys through a, you know, a certain level of training to get them up to speed and make sure they do things like,

like make sure that there's, uh, uh, uh, other people in the chain of command. that can step up and lead having a secession plan. So like him calling people forward, maybe if he had trained the battalion,

he knew that there was other guys in there that would be able to take charge. He didn't realize that there was like a little hesitation there that was going to happen, which is what happens. Yeah. So he doesn't know his team well enough for this situation. And that's not good. Back to the book, Captain Soudini says,

Larry Gwyn and I hit the edge of Albany on the northeast side of the clearing as the column began to receive intense fire. We began to receive sporadic sniper fire. Part of the recomb platoon had already reached the island. And the island that they're talking about as in like an island of woods, an island of trees. I yelled across the opening for someone to cover us.

We ran to the island. At this point, I called my first and second platoons on the radio. Almost immediately, I lost communications with first platoon. The platoon sergeant for the second platoon came on the radio. That was Sergeant First Class, William A. Farrell. 38 from Stanton, Tennessee. He was a veteran of World War II and Korea, had been a prisoner of war in Korea,

and could have chosen to remain in the states. He did not have to deploy with Vietnam with us. Everyone called him Pappy. Farrell kept asking Captain Sugenie's where he was, telling them that they were mixed up with the North Vietnamese and had several wounded and killed. I couldn't pinpoint his location. I knew where he should have been,

Directly east of our island Pappy then radioed that he was hit that there were three or four men with him all hit I could hear the firing at his location over the radio I never heard from Pappy again He did not survive This confusion that happens is fog of war stuff This is this complete fog of war stuff and by the way the enemy gets a vote The enemy gets a vote the enemy can do things like this that you'd

don't expect. The enemy can hit you from multiple sides. The enemy can have a strategy or a tactic to getting close. That's what the enemy's going to do. You don't know what the enemy's going to do, actually. You don't know what they're going to do. You don't know that they're going to have mortars this time. Back to the book, Lieutenant Colonel McDade himself recalls when things began happening, I got in with Alpha Company. I know I was trying to figure out what was going on. I moved very fast. Let's get over there in those trees and let's all get together. The enemy seemed to be all over the woods. We had good tight control in the immediate area, and we're trying to figure out where everybody else was. One of the things I was very concerned with was people being trigger-happy and just shooting up the grass.

I was telling them, make sure you know what you are shooting at because we are scattered. So notice how he says this. We had good tight control in the immediate area, and we're trying to figure out where everyone else is. This is horrible. It shows you two things.

When you have good tight control over people, you're okay. If you know where your people are, you're okay. One of the worst feelings on the battlefield is not knowing where your guys are. That is one of the worst feelings on the battlefield, not knowing where your guys are. And sitting there trying to figure out where everyone else is, which I guess those two are the same things. And so the biggest concern that he has right now is like he's so concerned about friendly fire. Keep control your people. Back to the book, the battalion operations officer Captain Spires believes that the

fact that the commanders were absent from their companies when the fight started contributed to the confusion. It had the most effect, I think, on Charlie Company. Their commander, Captain Skip Fesmire was up with. us and Don Cornett the Charlie Company executive officer was killed early on so they had no commander and they just disintegrated. So leadership is the most important thing on the battlefield. Talk about that all the time. This is why.

This is why when you see a platoon or a company that doesn't have any leadership, they fall apart. Now, if you are well trained and if you have a good secession plan and if you've done drills where the company commander gets killed and you take them out, and other people have to step up and lead. Yes, that is how you prepare for these situations. You have to prepare for those situations. You have to prepare for leaders to go down. But if you have no one that steps up,

you're going to be in a real hard way, real fast. Back to the book. The entire area is now alive with North Vietnamese soldiers who had obviously cut through the battalion's line of march, severing the head of the battalion from the body. Gwyn saw three GIs coming through the high grass running from the area swarming with enemy I jumped up and screamed to them waving my arm they saw me and headed directly to our position the first man was a captain our Air Force forward air controller who is completely spent I pointed out

the battalion command group which was huddled to our rear at the at another ant hill and he crawled toward them he was followed by the battalion sergeant major Jim Scott who dropped down next to me And Scott was followed by a young, very small PFC who was delirious and holding his guts in with his hands. He kept asking, are the helicopters coming? I said, yes, hang on. The battalion commander initially thought that the incoming rounds were all friendly fire. So think about that. The battalion commander initially thought that the incoming rounds were all friendly fire.

So what's his reaction? Take cover. Don't shoot back. Which is actually. If you're getting maneuvered on by an enemy, the worst possible thing you can do is take cover and not shoot back, because that means the enemy is going to maneuver faster on you. Back to the book,

he had been hollering for all of us to cease fire, and the word went out over the command net, but to no avail as the troops on the perimeter could see North Vietnamese. Can you imagine the confusion? You've got the battalion commander on the command net yelling to everyone to cease fire, and meanwhile, you can literally see North Vietnamese and you're shooting and engaging them. This is mayhem.

The Sergeant Major and I were looking to the rear when I heard a loud blast. The Sergeant Major yelled, I'm hit. He had taken a round in the back under his armpit and there was a large hole underneath his right arm. I told him he would be okay to bandage it himself. This he did, ripping off his shirt. Then he picked up his M-16 and headed back to one of the Ant Hills. I saw the Sergeant Major a few times after that and he was fighting like a demon. Sergeant Major Scott says I took a bullet through my chest not more than 15 or 20 minutes into the battle

I could see enemy soldiers to our left right and front in the in platoon and company size elements They were up in trees up on top of ant hills and in the high grass we weren't exactly organized We didn't have time everything happened all at once I didn't see a hole being dug up prior to 8 p.m. that night We did use the trees and ant hills for cover within a half an hour there was an attempt to organize groups into defensive position in the company area. Individuals did this. No one in particular,

I think that's what saved us. So this is decentralized command coming at you. The only thing that gets them together is that individuals stepped up and said, okay, we need a former perimeter defense. Now, unfortunately, a half an hour, an hour, it had already passed when they got to this point where the individual starts making the call.

The other thing is there's a lack overall direction. So you get to a point where if everyone knew, hey, here's the position we're going to be in the battalion, here's our formation, if something happens, here's what we're going to do, we're going to bound towards this area. There's all kinds of contingency plans that could have been done here. Now, again, I'm doing hindsight 2020, which I hate doing, but we are trying to learn and we are trying to talk to all the military people that are listening to this that are out

doing operations right now. think about this and I had this I probably told the story before but when we first got to Ramadi my one of the junior officers was taking a patrol out and it was a

combined patrol with some Iraqi soldiers and some seals and he was going over the patrol route with me and he got to this big open field and he said yeah and then we're gonna we have to go across this field because it's the only way to get from here to there and I said what are you going to do

when you get to this open field. He says, well, we're going to get across it. That's how are you going to get across it? And he said, well, we're going to walk across it. I said, what if you get hit? And he didn't really have an answer. I said, okay, so here's what you're going to do. Leave some guys in the tree line over here.

Have these guys bound across to this little dike right here. Then those guys can join them. Cover and move. Just cover and move across this field. And that's what they did. And sure enough, they actually got hit. They got hit with a pretty significant attack and with mortars and small arms fire. and they covered moved out of the situation.

But my point is looking at the terrain beforehand, having a plan and then executing the plan and dictating the situation you're going to be in instead of letting the situation dictate what happens to you. Don't do that. That's not a good answer. Situation dictates.

That's not a good. We dictate the situation. Talked about it before. And then have your, like the Vietnamese command was very broad. The commander's intent, get close, split them up. These guys didn't have a command like that. What could the opposite command have been?

Stick together. Stick together. Keep integrity. Well, there you go. Don't let them in close. Okay, there you go. Back to the book. Sujini's and Gwyn are agree that it was not long after this.

The commander of Alpha Company's missing second platoon lieutenant Gordon Grove staggered into the American position from the east. Here's Larry Gwynn talking. I saw Gordon Gordie Grove coming across the field along with two wounded men They were the only ones left of his platoon who could move Grove was distraught we got him and his two men with us and our met got our medics working on the wounded Then Gordy asked for men to go back with him to get his people Joel Shadini's said Gordy I can't send anybody about else back out there

It was clear that to leave this perimeter was death Everywhere you looked, you could see North Vietnamese. Gordy asked permission to go talk to the battalion commander. So Jeannie said, go ahead. He jogged over, asked McDade for help to get his men, got a negative response, so he came back to our Anhill. So this is one of those classic examples you hear about all the time. People will try and get you in the catch-22 question, like the got-you question.

Well, what would you do if you were in the situation and you, you, And some of your guys were still out there, but you didn't have enough people to go get them or you were being overwhelmed. What would you do? Well, here's what these guys did right here. They're like, no, you can't go get them. If you send more people out there, they're going to die.

If we send 10 guys out there, 15 guys out there, 18 guys out there to go recover this platoon, we're going to lose 18 more guys. We're going to stay put. We're going to fight his best we can from here. We'll get fire superiority back. We'll get our shit together. And then we'll go get these guys.

Quinn adds there was a tremendous battle going on in the vicinity of where we had come. into the clearing and beyond there in the jungle. It was Charlie Company caught in the killing zone of the ambush fighting for its life. The mortar fire had ceased. The enemy tubes apparently had been overrun by Charlie Company because we found them all the next day. But there were still hundreds of North Vietnamese calmly walking around the area we were observing. Now began the sniping phase of our battle. I call it that because for a long period of time, all we did was pick off enemy wandering around our perimeter, and this lasted until we started getting air support.

Everything that had happened to this point had probably taken less than 30 minutes. Gwyn saw Major Frank Henry, the battalion executive officer lying on his back using the radio, trying desperately to get some tactical air support and succeeding. The air was on the way, but there was no artillery or aerial rocket artillery yet. Jim Spires, the S3 ran over to us and queried Gordon Grove, Gordie Grove, as the situation outside the perimeter where he had just come from. Grove told him there were still men out there, tightened into a small perimeter,

but they were all wounded and dying, and the radios had all been knocked out. Captain Spires asked the second time if he thought anyone was still alive, and none of us said anything. Gwyn climbed atop a termite hill and began sniping at the North Vietnamese visible across the clearing in the trees

to the south with Zem 16 rifle. There were plenty of targets, and I remember picking off 10 or 15 NVA from my position. My memories revolve around the way in which each enemy soldier fell that I hit. Some would simply slump limply to the ground. Some reacted as if they had been hit by a truck. Some that I missed on the first and second shots kept on milling around until I finally hit them. What we did not know at the time was that they were wandering around the elephant grass,

looking for Americans who were still alive and killing them off. one by one. North Vietnamese soldiers climbed into trees and on top of those brush-covered termite hills and poured fire down on the cavalry troops troopers trapped in the tall grass below them in the main body of the column.

There was serious firing, including mortar fire, from both sides. The strike at the head of the column was followed so quickly by the enemy encircling assaults that the whole business seemed to erupt almost simultaneously. Without doubt, some of some platoons of mctade's battalion were alert and in as secure a formation as they could

achieve in the elephant grass brush and thick scrub trees but the visibility problem made it difficult to maintain formation and one result was that american troops were close to one another then was tactically sound providing juicy grenade juicy targets for a grenade mortar round or a burst from a k-47 rifle all down the column platoon leaders, sergeants, radio operators, and riflemen by the dozens were killed or wounded in the first 10 minutes, rapidly degrading communication, cohesion, and control. So this whole thing that we've talked about up from this point was like a half an hour. Just a brutal onslaught that kicked off with massive violence of action. Captain Fezmeier adds, the result was very intense, individual, hands,

to hand combat. In the confusion, I had no idea exactly where the company was located. When Lieutenant Cornett died, it was virtually impossible for me to talk to anyone in my company. The battle had clearly become an individual struggle for life.

Again, that was the goal of the Vietnamese, was to make it an individual struggle, was to get in close, was to separate people from the main battalion. to split it up into as many parts as possible so they could pick it apart. Spec 4, Jack Smith, who was in Charlie Company, had been a radio operator until about a week or so before this operation when he was shifted to a supply clerk's job. The events of November 17 are etched on his mind.

Smith's company commander, Captain Fezmeier, had, like the others, been called to the front by Lieutenant Colonel McDade. Subsequently, many people pointed to this as a major, error and in light of what has happened it was the firing began to roll on all around us the executive officer of my company a man called don cornet a very fine officer jumped up and in the best style of the infantry school yelled follow me elements of our first and second platoons ran right towards a series of ant hills within 10 feet of them we saw where the machine gunners behind them firing point blank at us men all around me began to fall like moan grass. I had never seen people killed before. They began to drop like

flies and die right in front of me. These were the only friends I had and they were dying all around me. Private first class James H. Shaden was in Thorpe's Delta Company mortar platoon. The intensity of the fire increased to the point where Shadden couldn't hear anything but weapons firing. And here's what he says. Tone Johnson came crawling with me, hitting the cheek in the back of the hand. The trees were full of North Vietnamese, but spotting one was almost impossible.

They blended in so well. I kept raising up to try and detect a good target. Matthew Shelton, who was laying next to me, kept jerking me down. As I raised up again, a bullet pierced my helmet straight through, front to back. I went down again and came back.

And as I came back up, a bullet struck the tree. beside my head from behind. I don't know if we were surrounded or was our own men. They were firing wild. Anything that moved, somebody shot at it. One trooper crawled up next to me, shooting through the grass a few inches off the ground

toward where our own people lay, never thinking what he was doing. I told him to be sure he knew what he was shooting at. The firing eventually began to slack off. Shaden has no idea how much time There was no way to keep track of time in a fight like this. Men were wounded and dead all in the area. Six were alive that I know of.

Sergeant Tyler, PFC Carter, PFC Johnson, PFC Shelton, PFC cones, and myself. Tyler gave the only order I heard during the entire fight. Try to pull back before they finish us off. Shelton froze to the ground and would not move. The five of us proceeded to try and pull back, but the snipers were still in the trees. Soon I was hit in the right shoulder, which for a time rendered it useless. Tyler was hit in the neck about the same time. He died in arm's length from me, begging for the medic, spec for William Pleasant, who is already dead.

The last words Tyler ever spoke were, I'm dying. Sergeant Tyler 35 was from Columbia, South Carolina. The helplessness I felt is beyond description. Within a few minutes, I was hit again in the left knee. The pain was unbearable. Cones was hit in the feet and ankle. We were wounded and trapped. I could see we were getting wiped out.

A buddy helped me bandaged my leg. He got the bandage off a dead Vietnamese. I got behind a log. and there was a Vietnamese there busted up and dead this was behind us so I knew we were surrounded it's

for me it's crazy to think these are Americans it really is you know it's crazy to think you always think naively so that Americans have the upper hand all the time but you know here you are you don't you don't

you don't always have the upper hand Shadden continues on it appears as if the ground was opening up and swallowing the mortar men they fell so fast a brown wave of death rolled over them and on into Charlie company vietnamese intermixed with them then reality set in the enemy held ground beyond the ant hill the column was cut in half incoming fire drew our attention back to the tree line the firing increased rapidly we returned Fire at muzzle flashes. I heard an explosion behind me turning I saw Chai Com grenades landing all flash and smoke no casualties The volume of fire became almost unendurable

Bullets peeled bark from trees vegetation disintegrated I looked to lieutenant James Lawrence for help Saw his head violently recoil he hit the ground here's another description back to the book here's what the Vietnam War looked like in the afternoon of November 7th through the eyes of two of Captain Forrest Alpha Company Rifleman, PFC David A, Perp, Lavender of Murfysboro, Illinois, and Spec 4 James Young of Steelville, Missouri. Says Lavender, my platoon was bringing up the rear. We started to maneuver and work our way up the column to help those ahead. Every time we made a move, we were hit by mortars.

It was something you can't describe. people were dropping like flies. The first blast killed a young soldier named Locatelli. Every time we moved, they dropped mortars on us. I know we must have had 12 or 15 wounded out of our platoon, including our platoon leader. These were my buddies I had been with in the army for two years. The majority of our whole battalion had been drafted at age 21

and had been in the service for over 18 months. All of us were nearly 23 years. old. They became my brothers over time. Hearing these fellows scream, hearing them killed, stuck in my heart and mind ever since. The most critical part of this fight was the beginning. It was the surprise. They had us in a U-shaped ambush, and they had us cut off with mortars. Surprise and violence of action. Surprise and violence of action. two key elements of firefights. And here's what Young said.

The other individual introduced a moment ago. There was a grassy field to my left, 25 or 30 yards and a sniper off on my right. I couldn't see him, but I saw a tracer bullet go across my hand. I felt the wind of that bullet. The same bullet passed over the back of Smith's neck. He was lucky. his head down our company commander captain force came running along our line he was stopping and

telling everybody where to go he acted as though he was immune to enemy fire i don't know how he kept from getting hit so captain forest stepping up and leading and what's it things do not happen without leadership so unless he gets up and makes these things happen they are not going to happen that's what you do as a leader you have to make things happen talk about it all the time. There's an example of it. Things do not happen unless you make them happen. Now, if you remember that oftentimes in Vietnam, there would be a command and control helicopter, and we talked about this on 105 where the brigade commander actually came and landed for a little bit and then left. Well, that was Colonel Tim Brown. And here we have a little section with

talking about what's going on with him. Back to the book. Colonel Tim Brown's helicopter was running low on fuel and the chopper had to return to refuel brown says i knew they were in a contact i did not know how severe or anything else while i was talking to mcdade i could hear rifle fire but he didn't know what was happening i asked what happened to your lead unit he didn't know where's your trailing units he didn't know and he didn't know what happened to any of the rest of them nobody knew what the hell was going on we were not in a position to shoot a bunch of artillery or airstrikes in there because we didn't know where to put them only now did colonel brown begin rounding up reinforcements to send in to help bob big dade's second battalion you notice

what he wants to know is where people are that that's and you've heard me talk about this before i used to ask the young junior officers what's the most important piece of information you you can have on the battlefield and they'd say where the enemy is and how how many there are and what kind of weapons there are. And no, the most important piece of information there is on the battlefield is where you are. And I actually tell the same thing to businesses. Because sometimes businesses don't know where they are

because they're not tracking what they're doing. So you ask them, hey, where are you in your P&L and your profit and loss? They don't know. You ask them where they're doing and where are their sales performances? They don't know. Well, how are we going to make any changes? You need to know where you are.

Most important piece of information there is. Here's McDade talking. Again, this is the colonel or the battalion commander, lieutenant colonel in charge on the ground. In that first hour or so, the situation was so fluid that I was acting more as a platoon leader than a battalion commander. That's a flag, red flag, right? If you're acting as a battalion leader and you're in charge of a battalion is 40 guys, a battalion is 500, 600, and he's acting as a platoon leader. Who's running the battalion then? We were trying to secure a perimeter.

I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on myself. I don't think anybody in the battalion could have told you what the situation really was at that time. I can see where this might have left Tim Brown, the brigade commander, in the dark about what was going on. I didn't know myself until things quieted down. The battalion commander adds, I could have yelled and screamed that we were in a death trap and all that crap, but I didn't know it was as bad as it was. I had no way of checking visually or physically by getting out of that perimeter. so all I could do is hope to get back in touch. I wasn't going to scream that the sky was falling,

especially in a situation where nobody could do anything about it anyways. So if you don't know what's going on, that means there's a bad problem. That's my assessment. And also, it's also if you, I'm not trying to say that you should cry wolf because you shouldn't. But when things are going sideways, you can wait for them to develop if you have a grip,

of what's happening. If you don't know what's happening, you better spin some people up to come help you. At least get them spinning, at least get them turning. That happens a lot where the guy on the ground might not fully understand what's happening. Make the call and say,

hey, I need, standby to stand by to support. Stand by, get QRF spun up. You know, you make those calls. That doesn't mean send anybody, but get them ready.

Get them closer. Get them on standby. QF is a quick reaction force. So if I'm on the ground, all of a sudden, getting shot at from multiple different directions, I'm not really sure what's happening. I might not say send the QRF, but I'll say, hey, have the QRF move to position alpha,

which is very close to where I am in case I do need them in 15 minutes or a half an hour or an hour or right now. I've at least made that progression. Is that like for just provide some general awareness? Yeah. So your QRF, quick reaction force, they might be 30 minutes away and they might need 15 minutes of notification time. Yeah. So that means if you called them right now, they're going to be here in 45 minutes. 45 minutes from bad firefight is not going to help you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So your first call, now you might bring them in and you pre-plan this. This is when I talk about pre-planning, we would always pre-plan. Hey, if we need QRF, we're going to call you to this point here. We'll call you to this point here. If we need to bring you on on standby, we'll call you to this point. Let's say this point is 500 meters away from where we actually are. And then we have one that's right where we are.

Like you come to this building. If we call QRF, you come to this building. We're going to try and get into that building. If you don't hear from us and we just call for QRF, come to that building will be inside it, to the best of our ability. As they get closer, hopefully you can establish communications with them directly.

But if you start losing control of the situation, this is the thing. When you start losing control of the situation, you call up the QRF and say, hey, move to the staging point. So now they're moving. You started that 45 minute clock, right? Now they've all spun up.

They're all getting in their vehicle. they woken up the people that need to get out, they get in their vehicles and they drive. So now they might get to the 500 meters away and I had the situation under control and I say, hey, we don't know you'd come in, we're okay, hold off on what you got. They're bombed, but they don't care.

They'd rather have that. Because maybe in 30 minutes, things have developed to a point where I need them and now they can get there in 15 minutes instead of in 45. Yeah, yeah, okay. So again, we're not trying to spin up and waste assets. Right.

And actually, you know, who did this? It's very similar in the previous podcast. The guy that called Broken Arrow, which means troops are about to be overrun. He didn't wait for anyone to tell them. He just called it. He's like, hey, broken arrow. Now it takes some time for those guys to show up there.

And by the time they got there, they needed them. Similar thing. Now, yeah, I don't advocate yelling or screaming. Sometimes you might have to, though. You know, you might need to get that information. People aren't paying attention. What you're saying, it can be impactful. If you've ever been sitting in an attack operation center

where you hear people yelling, it gets attention. because most military guys don't yell and scream for no reason. They're yelling and screaming because there's a reason why they're yelling and screaming. Don't recommend it. I don't recommend it, but I've heard it. You know, I prefer the calm guys. If you got to yell and scream, then calm down and talk about what you actually need. You can't just continue to yell and scream because you won't get through clear communication.

You'll come off the office too emotional. And, you know, you just become hard to understand. you're screaming and yelling. Calm down. Get their attention. Give simple, clear, concise direction of what you want. Back to the book. Each and every man still alive on that field, American and North Vietnamese was fighting for his life. In the tall grass, it was nearly impossible for the soldiers of either side to identify friend or fro except at extremely close range. Americans in olive drab and North Vietnamese and mustard brown were fighting and dying side by side. It may have begun as a meeting engagement, a hasty ambush, a surprise attacked, a battle of maneuver, and in fact,

it was all those things. But within minutes, the result was a wild melee, a shootout with just gunfighters killing not only the enemy, not only the enemy, but sometimes their friends just a few feet away. There would be no cheap victory here this day for either side. There would be no victory at all. Just the horrible certainty of death in the time. tall grass. Unbelievable. Horrible. Horrible.

Back to the book. Just forward of the headquarters section of the column, Charlie Company was beginning to die. Charlie Company. He's talking about Charlie Company, a whole company of men, 150 guys. Spec 4, Jack Smith was with the lead elements in the Charlie Company formation.

Near Lieutenant Don Cornett, the acting company commander, when the company charged into the teeth of the enemy machine guns in the first seconds, Smith saw one of the radio operators fall dead with a bullet through his chest, his eyes, and tongue bulging out. The men of Charlie Company were firing in all directions. Smith recalls, within a span of perhaps 20 minutes, everyone around me was dead or wounded

except me. You have to understand that in our area, the elephant grass was chest high. Once you hit the dirt, your world was about as big as a dining room table. Your world's completely confined to that. area and the six or seven men around you. At that point, we were isolated. Alpha Company was in the same shape. Then the North Vietnamese swept through.

I believe they came between Alpha and our company and began to shoot people. We didn't know if the noise was from five feet away as they began to shoot people, was friendly or enemy. Smith saw soldiers take machine guns, lie flat on the ground and begin firing into the grass. Often they were firing right into the muzzles of other American machine guns. People were screaming to stop the shooting. It began to have all the elements of a massacre. Nobody was in control because all the officers were to the front

and our radio operators had fallen dead on their radio sets. No leadership, no communication. You know, I talked to businesses and I explain this to him. There's your point. There it is loud and clear. Tell these businesses when I go and talk to business. When I go and talk to businesses, they talk about this problem and that problem, the other problem. The problem is leadership.

That's what the problem is. The problem is leadership. And this situation like this where the leaders are not there to lead, you've got serious problems on your hands. Especially once again, if you haven't trained people to lead to step up and lead when the leader's gone. If you haven't trained people to do that, you're going to have problems. No one is going to lead. Back to the book, Pain thought the North Vietnamese had done a much, much jettter. better job of anticipating and preparing for the attack, but the Americans who survived the initial

onslaught began to rally. In one respect, you could think of it as little big horn. We were surrounded with our packs in front of us shooting it out. During the course of that long afternoon, I never saw a soldier not do his duty. I never saw anyone who cowered in the face of the enemy. Our backs were against the wall, and it was a matter of survival. Every person I saw. I saw a person I saw rose to the occasion. So this is, the American troopers are doing what American troopers do, fight. Even in these terrible situations, no one cowers, no one stands down. Back to the book. Shortly afterward, the command came over the battalion net, throw smoke. Lieutenant Gwen moved a little away into the grass, and the men in Albany perimeter all began to throw smoke grenades.

I saw Skip Fezmeier, Charlie Company commander throwing smoke. I had no idea. I had no idea. what the hell he was doing up here our perimeter was marked with colors with all colors of smoke delineating our positions and shortly after the airstrike started they were the they were a one east sky raiders with napalm the first napalm canisters fell right at the point where soginis and i had left the jungle and came into the clearing we could see masses of north vietnamese on the other side i was sure i was very sure they were going to come across at us I think they were cleaning up over there, shooting down at the ground, dispatching our wounded. That first strike was right on target with two napalm cans.

I saw them hit the tops of the trees and jellied napalm was coming down through the limbs and the NVA were jumping, trying to get away and being engulfed in flames. I saw that time and time again. Lieutenant Gwyn remembers it cleaned out swath after swath. Those fuckers would jump up and try to run. didn't make it by now the Americans were cheering and laughing at each strike the cheering the cheering stopped when they dropped two canisters directly onto the position where the remnants of the second platoon had been making their stand it might have been me

but all I could hear was the cracking of unexpended rounds burning in the flames that engulfed our men none of us know if there were any alive at the time but none of us wanted to think about it spec for Dick Ackerman of the recomb platoon remembers our artillery was supporting us so close that we would occasionally get some shrapnel. There were planes flying close air support. We started digging in everywhere we could. My entrenching tool was attached to my pack, left out in the clearing, so I used my bandet, my fingers, and someone else's tool when it was available.

The comfort of a trench just big enough to hold your body is unbelievable. No more than 200 yards away in that tortured column of desperate Americans, one man prayed for a miracle and the U.S. Air Force delivered it. PFC Jim Shaden, Delta Company, who had booby-trapped his own body with a hand grenade, was badly wounded and unable to move. He was directly in the path of a group of North Vietnamese soldiers methodically sweeping the ground, killing his wounded buddies. And here's what he says. Before the North Vietnamese got to me, half a dozen of them, a pilot came over at tree top level, turned straight up and dropped the canister of napalm dead center on them.

I never ceased to be amazed at the accuracy of that drop. The heat of the napalm rolled across my face and body like an open door on a furnace. I owe this pilot more than it is possibly possible for a human to pay. May God bless all pilots. Now we hear from Captain Buse Tully's Bravo Company. First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry was assigned the mission of attacking to relieve the pressure and attempt to link up with the beleaguered battalion. Reinforcements were also on the way for the battalion command perimeter at the head of the column.

During the afternoon, Captain Myron de Dyrricks battle-wearied veterans of the fight at landing zone X-ray, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion 7th Cav, got a warning. to prepare for a night air assault into a hot landing zone. The Bravo Company troopers delighted to have survived the hellish fighting on X-ray and enjoying a well-deserved rest and a lot of cold beer back at Camp Holloway were stunned when they were told they were being thrown back into a desperate situation so suddenly. So if you remember, DeDyric from Podcast 105 from 270s, Bravo Company 27, they went in and helped turn the situation around at LZ X-ray.

They fought hard and then they got extracted. And now they're getting told, there's a bad situation going on again and we need to put you back on, back in back on the fight. Back to the book. Specialist John Walinas, Bravo Company Mortar Observer, was doing some serious celebrating. He had not only survived X-ray without a scratch, but this day, November 18th, was his birthday. I was 22 years old.

We were fed and showered, and new clothes were available. I spent the afternoon at the enlisted men's club, drinking beer with the platoon, exchanging stories, and celebrating my birthday. Around 4 p.m. DeDurik came in and told us to saddle up.

We were going to rescue the battalion. At about 1,600 hours, Lieutenant Rick Rescourla recalls, Captain DeDurik walked. up get the company together battalions catching hell we may have to go in you're the only platoon leader left in the company help all the platoons get their shit together men spilled out of the clubs and double timed their equipment they worked quickly throwing on their harnesses no protests but their eyes filled with disbelief again dideric then issued the the shortest

frag order in bravo company history we'll be landing from the south Southeast. Open fire at anything on your left, run to your right. A hostile landing with one side of the landing zone held by the North Vietnamese. Sit rep from the ground, grim. Expect to be sandwiched between friendly and enemy fires. At about 5.45 p.m. Rescourla gathered the platoons. They pressed in close, listening intently for word. Sergeant First Class Ulston. Ulston, the mortar platoon sergeant, staff sergeant, Martin, spec for Vincent, specialist Walinas, the towering sergeant Larry Melton, 80 or more, young faces, hollow eyes. You know the battalion is in the shit, I said.

We have been selected to jump into that shit and pull them out. If you fight like you did it X-ray, you'll come through it. Stay together. Come out of those choppers ready to get it on. Across the field, the first lift ships were sweeping in. Head them up, Captain Durek growled. I turned and walked ahead, Fantino trailing with the PRC 25. The road stretched out past the permanent hooches of the rear echelon at Holloway.

Word spread that we were on a suicide fight. Tumbling out of cozy bunks, Holloway's finest line the road to watch us depart. Hawaiian shirts, aviator shades, jeans, beer cans, and hands. Cooks and bottle washers, the ship burners, projectionists, club runners. Same army, different species. The company picked up pace, a tight, dirty brown column. A few of the men carried AKs, trophies from X-ray.

No one had shaved, noted Rescorla, but our weapons sparkled. What outfit are you? One spectator asked. The hardcore of Bravo Company, second of the seventh. Where are you headed? To kick ass, I yelled back. A deep rumble ran through the ranks, men yelling, cursing. Not a man among us would swap places with these lard asses.

As we passed, I asked Fantino, how are we looking back there? His reply, no stragglers, sir. Every swinging dick is with us. As we made a column right to the pick-up point, I looked back at our crew. No outfit in the Army had ever rendered a route step any better than these men at this moment. We piled onto the hughies without the usual loading instructions and skidded away into the fading gray light. At 6.45 p.m., the first lift ships roared into the small Albany clearance. and Captain DeDurick's troopers bailed out into the tall grass.

The cavalry had ridden to the rescue. But the killing and dying and terror continued unbated outside the American perimeter as the long night began. Once again, that's the American soldier right there. Barely survive X-ray, get called to go back in. And they pick up the pace. Back to the book, Captain Deerick wrote of the flight in and the situation, on the ground assaulting albany we picked up five bullet holes in the helicopter things were bad i found out when i landed that the battalion was shot up pretty bad so we came in the nick of time to their

rescue the main part of second battalion seventh calf was on their last ditch stand at albany little big horn revisited and here's rascorla talking looking sideways i saw a trickle of bud down the pilot's sleeve this is as they're flying in the choppers dropped a few feet the pilot yelled at the gunner the gunner the I hesitated get out I hesitated get the fuck out four of us dropped the bone-jarring 10 feet now inside the battalion command group perimeter Rescorla took stock and here's what he says the battalion sergeant major sat against a tree with a bandit's chest we got hit bad sir real bad the wounded were gathered 30 yards from the CP only half my platoon had arrived the other ships turned back because of the ground fire in darkness The perimeter was an oval island of trees.

Three platoons could man the perimeter, but with the exception of our people and Pat Payne's recomb platoon, there was no unit cohesion. Colonel McDade slumped against a tree. He looked exhausted. He was exceptionally silent. Major Frank Henry, his executive officer, was reassuringly active. A short fire plug of a man, Henry waved a welcome working the radios. Captain Joe Price, the fire support coordinator. coordinator crouched beside him.

Clumps of survivors sprawled inside the perimeter, including several company commanders. Lieutenant Larry Gwyn watched the reinforcements arrive. I saw Rick Rescorla come swaggering into our lines with a smile on his face, an M79 on his shoulder, and his M16 in one hand saying, good, good, good. I hope they hit us with everything they've got tonight. We'll wipe them up. His spirit was catching. The troops were cheering.

as each load came in and we really raised a racket. The enemy must have thought that an entire battalion was coming to help because of all our screaming and yelling. Major Henry directed that I round up some men and police all the ammo, resupply, which the choppers brought in on the last flight. It was lying in crates on the far side of the LZ. Somehow, we got it all into the perimeter. As I came back with the last load, I passed right over the body of that North Vietnamese

I'd killed early in the fight. there wasn't much of them left and I didn't give a damn so I mean there you go there you see one one leader makes a difference one leader makes a difference here these guys are completely surrounded dead and wounded everywhere and Rick rescorla comes in and says good I hope they bring it tonight we'll wipe them out back to the book lieutenant Pat Payne of the recomplatoon was just as happy about the reinforcements as Quinn we were all very surprised to see those helicopters come We were only securing one side of the LZ, so when the guys would jump off the helicopter, we hollered them which way to come.

I had a feeling we had actually been rescued, that and the fact that the cavalry had arrived just like in the movies. I admired the courage it took to land in Albany. Lieutenant Rescourla was one of the best combat leaders I ever saw during two tours in Vietnam. He walked around and pepped everyone up by telling them they'd done a good job, that there was support now, that things were under control. He never raised his voice, almost spoke in a whisper. We were awfully glad to see him and the others from Bravo Company.

We got in there and told everyone how you did a good job. Didn't get all negative. Although he's actually, and he talks about it, I think I'm going to cover it, but he talks about what he was actually thinking was like, this is going to be really problematic. In his mind, he was thinking, this is bad, really bad. But he didn't show that. He showed, hey, we're good.

Bring it. You're good now. Good job. Get ready to get it on. Talking a little bit about the air support that they're getting back to the book. Chief Warren Officer Hank Ainsworth had been overhead in the second battalion command chopper all day. And here's what he says.

I was overhead when the fight started and orbited overhead to late that night. I was on a freak talking to Major Frank Henry. Later that evening, he called me. Henry said, we have critically wounded. down here if we don't get them out they're going to die I called Medevac and they came out made a pass drew fire and refused to land to land Frank Henry knew exactly what to do about that situation he told Hank Ainsworth to call the 229th Huey Slicks the old Reliables Ainsworth notified the 229th pilots told them that Elsie Albany was hot

but that second battalion seventh cavalry had critically wounded men who would die if they were not evacuated says Ainsworth the whole damn unit volunteered I told them we only needed two ships despite Ainsworth's call for only two ships four Huey slicks lifted off from Camp Holloway Turkey farm at 9.50 p.m. for the 40 minute flight to Albany captain Bob Stinnett was again in the lead followed by Captain Bruce Thomas chief one officer Ken Faba and warrant officer Robert Mason. And here's what Stinett says. Normally the Huey

pilots throttle back their engines as soon as they touched down to conserve fuel. Fuel, not tonight. Something told me not to do that, to keep the engine turning at a full flight's RPMs. They told us the wounded were ambulatory. When we got in there, they were

all stretcher cases. My crew chief and Gunner had to get out and raise the seats so we could get all the stretchers in. Then all hell broke loose. Fire was coming in from everywhere. I immediately pitched, I immediately pulled pitched. And with the RPMs at flight, the ship instantly jumped 30 feet in the air and kept going up. We went so fast that the crew chief and Gunner got left behind on the ground and I didn't even know it.

We just flat left them. We had the wounded inside. When we got back, we counted 30 holes in my machine. That was enough for me and my Huey. The lift of three that went in after me after me took in medical stuff. and brought back more wounded and my crew. Major Frank Henry was on the flashlight at the time. Joel Sugenis watched it with awe as the brave aviators,

risked everything for the wounded at Albany. I remember thinking they were the bravest pilots I had ever seen. They were sitting ducks, and I fully expected to see them shot down at any moment. They were guided in by Frank Henry. You could see the tracers. The aircraft didn't hesitate it a bit. They landed, loaded.

and we're gone in seconds. So again, you see what, that's the American fighting spirit. Oh, we got a hot LZ where are we probably going to get shot down, but we've got wounded Americans on the ground. We're going to get them. Everyone in the unit volunteers.

We only need two aircraft. Guess what we're bringing four. Back to the book. After midnight, several shots rang out from inside the perimeter. A trooper 20 yards behind Raskerla inside the perimeter had rattled off a panicky three rounds. Rescorla walked back and cussed out the group in the middle of the perimeter.

If I hear one more round out of you, we will turn our weapons around and open up. No one fires from inside their perimeter. If you want to fire out to the perimeter, if you want to fire, get out to the perimeter line. Whispered communication took place all night between isolated elements outside the perimeter. If there was heroism, it was out there in the tiny groups of wounded and those who had bandaged and protected them through the night. They were just like hunting buddies, said Rescourla. Corla, surviving Bayan instinct, looking out for each other.

Lieutenant Larry Gwynne of Alpha Company recalls that late that night, one of Alpha's missing men crawled into the American perimeter. And here's what he says. Sergeant James A. Malardi from our first platoon made it back to our lines. His story, the NVA had been shooting our wounded. One came up to him, stuck a pistol in his mouth and fired. The bullet exited through the back of his throat, knocked him out, and they left him for dead. He survived and when he woke up that night he started crawling to us. The next day

was a real nightmare as we went out to find our dead and missing. I think each of us cracked up a little bit that day as the true picture of the action began to unfold. Then it came across the radio. Bravo Company had found one other survivor from our second platoon. He had been badly wounded in the legs and had propped himself up against a tree. He had been burned by Napalm waiting in the night and some North Vietnamese had put a pistol to his eye and pulled the trigger. Shot him in the eye, blinded him, but he was still alive. I saw him being brought in by stretcher smoking a cigarette, all fucked up.

So at this point, things had backed off a little bit. They had backed off. and they actually did the Mad Minute, which is something that Hackworth talks about, and it's something that they did in the first part of this book, which is, hey, everyone in the perimeter is just going to shoot a bunch of rounds,

like at 6.30 in the morning, boom, everyone fire a full load out or a full magazine or a couple magazines at likely targets. And they did that and that seemed to calm things down. They kind of did that once things. had already calmed down a little bit and it was it was it indicated that maybe things were calming down a little here's another thing back to the book the NVA came into the ambush area that night to recover their dead and wounded when they found any of our guys alive they would beat

them to death bayonet them or machete them to avoid shooting and drawing fire from us that was during the night they did that like I said they did the madman and here's what here's what Lieutenant Rescorla said about the mad minute. He said, this decision was regrettable. Rifle fire shattered the silence and the perimeter was ringed with reckless firing. Little thought had been given to that the remainder of our survivors were sprawled among the trees and anthills within 500 yards, the effective range of our M16s. What the fuck is happening? Are you shooting at us?

The frantic radio calls started coming in. How many troops were killed or injured by our wake-up call will never be known. Thank God for the trees, the ant hills, and the uneven terrain. Captain Dudley-Tademi, Third Brigade Fire Support Coordinator, remembers flying out to Albany at first light the next morning. Tim Brown, myself, Mickey Parrish, took a while to get through the smoke hanging over the whole area. Not much had really taken place in terms of policing the area. The image is still vivid in my mind is the carnage. folks were still sitting around in a daze they hadn't done much hadn't even taken ponchos and covered up

these bodies i could handle the conversation i could handle grown men crying but we were talking 12 hours later sitting there feeling sorry for themselves colonel brown was very pissed off even if you do get caught in a bad situation you have to do something to recover it was young kids who paid the price in later years I used to stress that to my young battery commanders it isn't us who die in combat it's those young kids who die those kids we are responsible for training and leading it's our job to get the job done and get those kids home safe and here they're wrapping up this again now this the the battle turned and and really the Vietnamese left after the massive air strikes it started And here's another image of the cleanup. Back to the book, Specialist for John Walinas of Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, Mortar Paltoon, and most of the rest of DeDuric's men were involved in this macabre depressing duty.

It was incredible carnage. We went into areas where lots of artillery had come in during the night, and we saw our guys had been blown up in the trees. the bodies were already decomposed and it only happened the night before we were in shock it was the first last and only time i ever saw anything like it and i pray never again the stench was unbelievable we started hauling in the whole bodies first then we brought in the pieces and parts two chinooks came in and we loaded one with about 20 corpses neatly arrested ranged in litters.

The pilot began preparing to take off. One of our officers pointed at M16 at the pilot and told him to keep the bird on the ground. We weren't through. Bodies were loaded floor to ceiling. When the ramp finally closed, blood poured through the hinges. I felt sorry for the poor bastards who would have to unload this chopper back at Holloway. The nightmares born of this battle have never faded. Final Division Headquarters account reported that the 27 Alpha and Bravo companies and the

one five battalion suffered 151 men killed in action, 121 wounded, and four missing in action. And on April 6th, 1966, so quite some months later, Hal Moore, who was at that time had become the third brigade commander, went back to LZ Albany and recovered the bodies of all four members of 27 who were brought back on a helo and began the long journey home to America. Now, this was, as I said, kind of the tipping point in the Vietnam War and this battle had a impact strategically. One thing that came from this battle, and I'll talk about a little bit more in the book, but the body count came back. And the body count came back basically as 10 to 1 or maybe 12 to 1.

So for every 10 or 12 North Vietnamese soldier that was dead, there was only one American killed. And our generals liked that ratio. They thought, hey, you know, we can win a war of attrition. And one of the comments that comes in the book as they go back and interview, General Gap, who's the senior general of the North Vietnamese army, he's got a book actually what we're going to do on the podcast at some point. He's the mastermind of the strategy, and he said, we thought that the Americans must have a strategy.

We did. We had the strategy of a people's war. No, part of what that means is that the strategy of the people's war means we're going to suffer some casualties and we're okay with that So our strategy of saying well, we'll get them into a war of attrition. They're okay with it. They don't care Human life has less human A human life has less value for them at this time The commander sure's hell didn't care You know we talked about that last time they're losing guys on the from malaria on the trail

You're gonna lose five six guys they don't care they've got a war to win. So talking about some of the other sort of strategic things or strategic implications from this, um, 1967. So this is a couple of years later. Back to the book in mid-December, President Johnson convened a White House meeting of his top advisors. Will Bundy says that McNamara's option number one,

get the hell out of Vietnam now, while the getting is good was never seriously considered nor was it pressed by McNamara. Option number two, the huge buildup of American combat and support troops was readily approved by all, including McNamara. Ever the numbers cruncher, McNamara told the gathering, the military solution to the problem is not certain. The odds of success are one out of three or one out of two. McNamara did push for a bombing pause to prepare US opinion, public opinion, for the coming escalation. So again, I'm sure at some point on this podcast,

we will dive deep into the political manipulation, the political decision-making that happened during the Vietnam War. But this is what they're talking about. It's interesting to hear McNamara, even back in 1967 in saying, we got like a one in three, maybe one and two, odds of winning. That's not good odds.

We don't like those odds. Here's. Here's Halmore talking again, back to the book. In late June, 1966, my turn was up as commander of the third brigade. When my replacement, a colonel straight out of the Pentagon showed up to take over, my brigade was in the field fighting near Dong Trey. It would have been criminal in those circumstances to relinquish my command to a man who's still pissing stateside water, and I flatly refused to do so.

The change of command was delayed 10 days until the fight was. was over. A month later, on August 8th, 1966, my replacement sent Alpha Company, First Battalion, 7th Cavalry back in the Idring Valley by itself, and 25 men were killed in one terrible day. So not a good turnover situation. And again, this is where, this is where the beer, people always talk about when I talk with businesses, they go, we have a big bureaucracy here. And you don't understand. It's like, no, we understand. The military understands bureaucracy better than anybody. We probably got the biggest and most, most firm in place bureaucracy in the world. And this is part of it right here.

Back to the book, I hope that my next assignment would be to the infantry school at Fort Benning, where I could pass along what I had learned in Vietnam for the young officers who were headed for combat. It was not to be. In fact, only one of the hundreds of officers who had gone through air mobile training and a year in the field with the first cavalry division was assigned to the infantry school. I was sent instead to Washington, D.C., where I was told my next job would be a Latin American desk at the U.S. State Department. This is an embarrassment. Right?

Here's this guy basically created or helped create or helped test the idea of air mobile helicopter assaults. And then he did it for a year in the field, commanded at the battalion end at the brigade level. And instead of putting him in the infantry school where he could teach the stuff that he, learned, they sent him to be the Latin American desk. And I'll tell you what's awesome, this was awesome. When I was in the SEAL teams, I went to Ramadi. When I came home, guess where I went? I took over the West Coast seal training for the guys that were getting ready to deploy

right of Rackana. I did what he wanted to do, which is perfect. And luckily, we have a little less bureaucracy and I was able to talk to my boss and say, hey, this is what I should be doing. You see, yeah, you're right. And put me in that position. but it didn't happen. And here's all this knowledge gone.

And they said only one officer out of 100. That's another thing. Like when you hear, you know, people in the business world, they say, well, the military is this great organization. The military has all kinds of problems. The military is no perfect, no perfect example of the way to run things. Parts of it are. But you can't look at the military at a whole and say that that even remotely makes sense in any way, shape, or form.

And I could point a thousand things out to you today. The military is the same way, doing dumb stuff. I mean, it's a great organization. There's got great people. There's unbelievable leaders in there, but there's also idiots. The military is made up of people, of human beings. Brilliant ones, dumb ones. Back to the book.

For the next year, I watched Bob McNamara and John McNaughton, both brilliant men go through hell as they struggled unsuccessfully to get a handle on the war and the pacification progress in Vietnam. At the end of that year, neither of them was either Neither of them was any closer to finding or creating such a handle. An office wit

summed up what was happening in Vietnam, sadly and succinctly. Although we have redoubled our efforts, we have lost sight of our objective. So we're pouring all this troops in there, putting all this money in there, putting all these assets in there. We've redoubled our efforts,

but we've lost sight of our objective. Back to the book. What then had we learned with our sacrifices in the Idrang Valley? We had learned something about fighting the North Vietnamese regulars and something important about ourselves. We could stand against the finest light infantry troops

in the world and hold our ground. General Westmoreland thought he had found the answer to the question of how to win this war. He would train one American life for 10 or 11 or 12 North Vietnamese lives day after day until Ho Chi Minh cried uncle. Westmoreland would learn too late that he was wrong, that the American people didn't see a kill ratio of 10 to 1 or even 20 to 1 as any kind of bargain. But we had validated both the principle and the practice of air mobile warfare.

A million American soldiers would ride to battle in Huey helicopters for the next eight years, and the familiar whoop of their rotors would be the enduring soundtrack of this war. Finally, even though it took 10 years, cost the lives of 58,000 young Americans, and inflicted humiliating defeat on a nation that had never before lost a war, some of us learned that Klauswitz had it right 150 years earlier when he wrote these words. No one starts a war, or rather no one in his senses ought to do so without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it. Klauswitz, be clear in your mind. in what you intend to achieve, know what you are going to do.

That doesn't seem like too much to ask. Certainly in war, you wouldn't think it would be too much for people to ask in their lives either. Their precious lives, as precious as these 58,000 that died in Vietnam. Heroes. But how often do we see people going through their lives without knowing. what they are trying to do without having any intent without having a clear mission i'm talking on an individual level as a person people go through their lives without knowing what it is they want to do what they want to accomplish so know what your mission is know what your

intent as the commander of your life know what your intent is and then fight with everything you've got to win and i think that's all i've got for tonight so echo maybe if you want to uh shed some light on how people can maybe help themselves win that war sure and Maybe support the podcast if they want to. If they want to. Yeah. That point, though, in my opinion, is a good one? It's a good one.

It's a good one. Think about you. People go through their lives and even know what they're trying to do. Yeah. And it sounds. The same thing as going to war without knowing what the outcome is supposed to be. Yeah. Your goal.

But it sounds kind of like obvious when you say it, you know, like, hey, go through. You know, when you go through life, should you have a goal? Real obvious. Yes. You're not going to say, no, you shouldn't have a goal kind of thing. So it seems obvious, but you know how you live day to day? You know, you might have a goal for the day, maybe two, maybe three, but life is full. Life is a full spectrum of stuff.

Well, again, it's so shocking because what you're saying is absolutely true. You wouldn't think that people would be going through life without knowing where they're trying to get to. Yeah. But you wouldn't think that a nation, would go to war without clear intention of where they want to end up and how they're going to get there. At least an idea of how you're going to get there. Now, I have a little bit of, like when Klauschwitz says how you're going to conduct the war,

that's not necessarily true because you don't know, you can't know how you're going to conduct a war before the war starts. You can have an idea, but you can't know fully, just like if you were to say, hey, my goal is to X in my life. You don't know how you're going to be able to do that, right? Yeah, because you're talking about because you got to adjust. Because you're going to make an adaptation. Things are going to come up.

Things are going to change. The battlefield changes. Your life changes. Things pop up. I mean, things happen. So I think that, that idea that you're going to know how you're going to execute something is far-fetched. I think, actually, I should use the word idea. You should have an idea of how you're going to do it.

Yeah. You should have an idea like, okay, well, this is what I need to get done. This is what I want to achieve in my life. I want to make, I want to do this. What's a simple one? I want to own a house. That's a simple one. That's a good place to start.

I want to own a house. Okay, well, let's think about how we're going to get there. You know, let's think about how we're going to get there. You have to build your credit. You have to, how do you build your credit? You have to borrow money. Some people, some people, they go to buy a house, they've never borrowed money before. You can't borrow money if you've never borrowed money.

You can borrow money. You can borrow money for a car or, or some smaller object before. So you've got to establish your credit. Then you've got to have two years worth of income. Then you've got to have a big fat down payment sitting ready. So there's things you've got to do. There's things that you can go. Now that might change across along the way.

The idea is that you've got to move towards that goal. But that's what was so nice about hearing the Vietnamese commander's intent. Get close, split them up. Boom. You go make that happen. Hey, guess what? You want to buy a house one day? Save money.

Have good credit. Yeah. Okay, well, you got to make money. How are you going to make money? You might make it drive an Uber. You might make it delivering pizza. You might make, because you got your real job with that support in your family, but then you need a little extra to throw in there.

Well, that's why you end up driving Uber. You have whatever it is you're going to do. You're able to make some money on the side that you can start stashing away. Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, you do have that goal, you know. So it is, yeah, how you conduct yourself, it's not going to be cut and dry for sure. But, you know, in these examples, like, you know, you want to buy a house.

That's a goal. That's a specific goal. But that's just one teeny tiny goal in life. If you're, of course, you're not going to run into somebody who their only goal in life is to buy a house. No, no, no. I said a simple one. And some people like, hey, don't buy a house. It's stupid.

You should rent instead. That's fine. Yeah. I'm not telling everyone what their goals should be. And if you want to keep renting, keep renting. Maybe that's for you. Yeah, yeah, fully. Not for me.

Yeah. But maybe it's for you. There's other things you want to put your money. That's cool. You're doing something else smart with your money. That's fine. Yeah, like buying rims or something like that. Either way, though, if you consider like just what,

what, um, Klaus of it's how you say the name? what he's saying and compared to life right where buying house shirt that's one of many goals you're going to have in life because life is full like I said but so it kind of when you really think about it it's hard it's hard to like designate some specific goals and then that's all you're going to do okay let's say you're going to say you're going to be financially secure and independent okay that would be a much bigger goal awesome right that's an awesome goal to have and the younger you make that goal the better chance you have of achieving it yeah because now you're not wasting your You're actually saving for a house so you can get that house paid off

So now you don't have a mortgage anywhere. You know it's like yeah, that's a bigger goal. That's a broader goal just like when you when you go to war? You need to know what it is you're going to war for? What are you going to do and what are you going to stop and what's your intended result? Yeah So you got to in a way you got to fill your life with a bunch of goals so you don't get jammed because like if you have small goals that lead to the big goal, right? So for instance, you want to be financially secure and stable. What are you going to do? You're going to save some of your money. Okay, that's one thing. You're going to buy a house. That's another thing. You're going to pay off your car and you're not going to buy expensive dumb cars. You're going to buy cheap cars until you have the money to buy them with cash.

You're going to make all these little things. You're going to work extra. You're going to do these things. So you're right. You have your broad goal. Yes. You have your long-term goal. Yes.

And then you've got your short-term goals that lead and are strategically aligned with that long-term goal. It's the same thing in war. You have to have both those things going on. Yeah. Yeah. And then on top of that. you should have you want to have the last word today don't you no no no no no I'm making this every time I concisely close out what you're trying to say you you add because it's not that

I mean it is that but then you're talking about life now and here here's kind of the point where you say okay you say one example is financial um like you want to buy house you want to be financially secure that's one goal but in life there's more to life than just financial so you want your you want your, you know, relationships, you want your, like, there's all these things that you, you kind of hope or want to be solid, we'll say. So, but most people don't really put it in perspective that clearly. Like, okay, I want this. Oh, yeah.

You know, I'm going to write this. I want this. So what you're saying is you need goals. If you have goals, yes. If you have goals in those areas, then you can, you know, you can. You can maneuver towards them. Exactly right. Avoid distractions, all this stuff, right?

and fight and fight towards those goals. Sounds obvious, but that's what I'm saying. It's like hard to like designate each goal in life. Oh, I didn't say this was going to be easy. Yeah. That's,

but it's not that hard. If you sat down for 20 minutes, I bet you could come up with some solid life goals. That's kind of the, that's kind of the point I was making where it's like, you're too busy cruising. You come up with life goals. Yeah, you know,

and really it's about this being distracted. I think that's what it is, you know. And if the clear your goal, the more, control you can have over being distracted or not. Because like if your goal isn't that clear, it's almost like it's not going to be clear or it is. You won't really be clear when you're being distracted or not kind of thing.

People don't, and I'm saying people, I mean myself. We don't live our lives like just in constant pursuit of all our specific goals. It's like a lot of life is minute to minute, man. No. No, it is right. I'm telling you. A lot of life is. You can have some sections that you can carve out so you can live like that, but that's not where you want.

I'm not saying it should be how you're rolling. Yeah, no, no, it's not how it should be. So I'm saying. So if you'll notice in life, I think like any, any solid goal that you've achieved, you'll notice that it took that clear goal and you just didn't get distracted and you just fought for it. So it's like you've done it for yourself. And there's also just like being on the path. Yeah. Because I was thinking about jiu-jitsu, right?

My goal in jiu-jitsu is never to get a black belt. I never said like I want to be a black belt and jesus. I never even fought that. Yeah. I just wanted to get better at this thing. Right. Oh, okay.

So your goal was not to get a. No, it wasn't, no, yeah. My main goal was not to get a black belt. My goal was to train jihitsu and get better at jihitsu. Yeah.

And therefore it comes. My goal was like, like even finances. I wasn't like, hey, I want to make X amount of money. I was like, I want to be able to do whatever I want to do. Yeah.

So let's move in that direction. Yeah. That might not even have a financial value. Like there's some people that do whatever they want to do, but they have a very low income, but they set themselves up in such a way that they're allowed to do what they pretty much want to do. Check. All right. Are you done?

Last word. No, no. No. No. Last word. Anyway. Oh, yeah. Support.

Right. That's what we were talking about. All right. Yeah, you can support yourself. That's what I wanted to hear you talk about. When you pursue goals, you may or may not need support. I recommend support. Supporting yourself, support of others, from others, for others to a street kind.

Anyway, if one of your goals is to maintain physical shape and capability is important, I work out, right? You work out, bro? Yep, good. So I work out, right? And you know how, so my wife will give me grief sometimes, because I'll just like work out at the wrong time, you know, because in my mind like working out is important right so I can like low about you yes so I can loosely justify oh yeah you know yeah it's dinner time but hey my health right and sometimes so she'll frame it like oh yeah you choose to like work on your work on your body or something like that and I say no it's health it's capability it's true but the point there is it's important no matter how you frame it or your wife frames it's important.

Yeah. You want to do it strategically. Anyway, while doing that, you take krill oil, you take stuff that helps maintain the structural integrity of your body. And the good news is

Jock has supplements for that. Crill oil, Jocko, super krill, and joint warfare. I've been taking these consistently and solid, legit. Thank you, Jocko. Also, Jock has a new one called Discipline. It's a pre-mission.

if your if your mission is a workout it's a pre-workout if your mission is a studying it's a pre-study studying pre-studying supplement you know pre-mission little uh cognitive enhancers in there a little bit of caffeine micro dose right you like the microdose yeah yeah you don't want to get all strong out on caffeine it's just the perfect amount essentially also if you are oh wait let me tell you where to get these things good point Yeah, because they're not just floating out there. Anyway, go to origin main.com. That's where you get them.

Also in origin, main.com. You can get cool geese. A lot of people still know, still asking me. Maybe not every day. Maybe not every other day, but they still ask me what geese should I get. I started to jiu-jitsu. What geese should I get? Here's origin geese, 100%.

Not even 99%. 100%. Origin gays. A big range to choose from. They also got rash guards in there. Compression gear for any other activity you like. Some fashion stuff on there, too. Bring into fashion stuff?

No. Come on, but a little bit? No, little bit. Not at all. A little bit. Also. Oh, you mean they have a plain black victory MMA T-shirt? No, we have that.

Oh, okay. Because that's my level of fashion. Yeah, well, it happens to be on jocco store. Dot com. But I'll get to that. First things first. Just check it. If you're doing...

Did you say that origin stuff is made here in America? No big deal. It's no big deal. Just made in America. Yeah. I think it's a big deal, but I don't like... Oh, you're not going to focus on it. Because, you know, the quality kind of leads with this one.

Or they could go hand in hand. Is it good quality because it's made in America? Yes. Or is it made in America because it's good quality? Well, both. It's good quality because it's made in America by qualified craftsmen. Yes, I think that's really the case. And some of it is...

No, one of my buddies is just... He was on deployment and had an origin geese. Shipped over on deployment. And he came home from deployment. And he'd been training while he was on deployment. And he's like, bro, that origin geese is the best thing ever. I was like, I know. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, for sure. So anyways. And it's made America. So... From the cotton. The cotton that's grown here in America. What do you call? processed here in America

woven in America made into a ghee in America you can wear it wherever you want but well you can't wear your ghee wherever you want actually more or less no with exceptions you're not allowed to do with your ghee yeah yeah I agree I agree club no

grocery store no ghee yeah have you ever want a ghee to grocery store no me neither I've I've never worn my ghee outside of a jihitsu academy. I'm confirming that my brain right now. What about the kind you're either going to Jiu Jitsu or leaving Jiu-I-Zitsu?

I don't. I changed there. Yeah, you change there. What if I just started rolling in the ghee all the time? Like everywhere. Like outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awkward.

You know what little kids do it. Yeah, that's what I'll say. My daughter, she throws the geese on. She's no problem with that. She's walking around the supermarket. No, she's working on the supermarket. She's ready. Representing.

So, he'll geet choke somebody. Ezekiel. wearing a ghee in the store can be tactically sound you know achieving her goals you're focused you got to demonstrate every once in a while not being distracted it's good nonetheless

you're gonna get a ghee again I'll say it now I'll say it again all made in America origin main dot com boom select whatever gear you want get two I have two three actually wait no the new discipline equals freedom gear I got that one so three yeah all together

boom origin I think I'm gonna get a black One, two, by the way. Okay, that's, you know. Also, working out, you're doing jujitsu, maybe. You're doing weightlifting, maybe. You're running, whatever. I say do kettlebells.

And when you do kettlebells, get the cool one from Onet. Onet.com slash jocco. Look for the primal bells, my opinion. Actually, the zombie ones are pretty dope, too. But get those. That's what I think. Makes it work out more interesting. I did one yesterday.

It was interesting. Kind of hard, too. But nonetheless Yeah get them from there They got a lot of cool stuff on there for Interesting workouts You want to switch it up If you don't do the same like if your workout is boring

Or something like that get like a Get some battle ropes Go through one of those workouts You ever did one like that before Or a battle ropes workout before I have yeah Yeah interesting It kind of makes your like serratz

Kind of sore You know what that is? Your intercostal muscles Yeah down there nonetheless anyway onet dot com slash jraco that's where you get them solid site also when you are getting this book we were soldiers once in young actually i thought it was we were soldiers once and young and i was like wait no it's we were soldiers once and young and young and by the way we were young kind of thing anyway when you get that book good book outstanding book it's a great title when you

see like my wife will will do something that there'll be like young seals at yeah and my wife's always like oh they look so young yeah they look so young you know and that's what you always think yeah you always think that these kids are so young and then I was one of those kids yeah and yeah they are young and that's who fights worse young kids well that's 18 19 20 22 years old 23 years old that's who fights wars yeah yeah and it's crazy and jp kind of talks about this where Your maturity kind of gets on this, like, fast track when you jump in the military. It doesn't. It doesn't.

In some ways. It doesn't. It doesn't because you're also institutionalized. Oh, yeah. So you don't, like, when you're in the middle, that's what hurts some guys when they get out of the military. They're like, wait a second. I don't, wait, where is my paycheck? It's supposed to come every two weeks.

Now it's not there anymore. Oh, yeah. You just get used to it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you have a mission. Here's what you're going to do. And that, when you're in the military, you just, here's your clothes that you're going to wear. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Makes sense. Here's the haircut that you're going to have. You get out of the military, and you're like, you don't have this direction anymore. Yeah. So you do get,

it matures you in some ways, in other ways you get stunted to growth. That's why you get some guys doing dumb shit when they're 30 years old, 38 years old, 42 years old. Yeah. They're doing the midlife crisis thing. But when you think,

when you love, or maybe it's not even a midlife. They're just trying to figure it out. Yeah. Right. They didn't do that. Like, at the time as everyone else.

But you know how you talk about your wife looks at, um, at the younger. guys or the seals and say oh they look so young that's i think that's like an indicator that she doesn't feel old you know because you know how like when you're when you kind of like i i do the same thing when i look at college football when i watch college football because i remember when i was playing football oh yeah there was a guy 26 years old on my team 26 and you thought he's old school yeah it didn't help he was kind of going bald and stuff like that but nonetheless he's 26

26 is young, by the way. And depending on how old you are. Because when you're 16, you don't think you're, if I tried to ask my son who's 15, like what, what, how far away 25 years or how long was it until he was 25? Like he would understand 10 years. He has no, he would not be able to like cognitively assess what a 25 year old human being is thinking about. Yeah. He's 50, bro.

He's not got it going on. Yeah, but I feel like you'd still be able to figure out, okay, 25, you know, people, when do people die of old age, quote unquote, would be what, 80s, 90, right? Typically, just, you know, whenever. So you figure 25 is what? Less than a third of your life. 26, less than a third, that would be considered old technically. If they were to think about, I think a 15 year old would grasp that even though the 26-year-old was old.

He was old. Yeah, I thought so. So when I look back and then I don't feel old, as old as I am. I don't feel like old. I think back when I was in like college or whatever. And I think about the number of my current age and I think, dang, that's old. That's older person. Being that older person now, I don't feel like how I thought that older person in the film, right?

And I really think that now it really comes and gets put into perspective when I watch college football. And I see him take off their helmet. I'm like, dang, that is eight. child right there playing college football performing outperforming like super good but they just look so young i'm just like your wife they look so young but it's because i don't feel like an old person that's weird yeah i guess so because you know if you feel like old person you're like yeah they look young because they're young they're oh okay i'm an old person they're young you feel like you you could be in there too and you're like oh that comes pretty young yeah and then you say okay he's

he's young and i'm old you know it's one of those things nonetheless back to support when you buy this we were soldiers once and young go to jacquodcast.com we got a section we got all the books that this book listed by episode all the books listed by episode plus a few other ones

boom click through there we got you takes you direct link Amazon Prime you have prime right I do one day shipping same day shipping sometimes yeah anyway get it there good way to support and if you're going to do other shopping carry on

good way to support also jocco at the store and i'm going to talk about it but before i do that i think if you subscribe to the podcast is a good way to support that's what i was going to say subscribe if you haven't already seems obvious but subscribe leave a review on itunes if you subscribe to itunes if you want to leave a review if you're feeling reluctant just get over it leave the review also youtube subscribe to youtube video version of this podcast also excerpts various types of excerpts, you know, so you can share.

So you don't, if you don't want to share the whole two and a half hour podcast with people, there are excerpts if you wanted to share an individual concept with people. They can, boom, they can get that concept and, you know, share it and internalize it. You know what I mean.

Also, jocco is a store. It's called jocco store.com. Shirts, t-shirts, rash guards, hoodies, some patches on there, hats on there. Just, it's the stuff. I'll say it's cool stuff. I wouldn't be pushing stuff that I didn't think was cool. And it's jocco approved, kind of.

The pink shirts aren't jocco-prud. But nonetheless, if you want to get shirts and stuff, that's where it is. Jocco store.com. They are good stuff. They are good. They're not like the cheap ones, is what I'm saying. So, boom, you can rest of shirt. But yeah, tell me what you think.

If you have one, hey, people take pictures of themselves with this shirt on and they say, this is a good shirt. And that's good. I encourage that. And if you don't like this shirt, let me know too. There it is. Also, good way to support yourself. One of the better ways, in my opinion, depends on what kind of person you are, is psychological warfare. If you don't know what that is, it's an album with tracks with Jocko on each track telling you that in your,

on your campaign against weakness, when you hit those roadblocks, that's what it is. That's what they are roadblocks. Mental fatigue, distractions, all this stuff. These tracks will help you through it. It's Jocko telling you pragmatically, giving you practical information and advice, how to get over those roadblocks or around those roadblocks or through those roadblocks. I'm going to make a psychological warfare track that's going to be. to be directed towards you to make you talk about this stuff faster okay well here's the thing when I

you know I come across this part right yeah see and I'm I feel compelled to share the valuable points that I think are valuable that I've used or that I felt with each thing but then I'm like oh wait that'll take a long time to explain so sometimes I don't seem to care sometimes I go with it you don't seem to care sometimes I don't but today yeah like I'm giving you a down check no I think it's valuable okay we'll go with that now watch how fast I do this yeah but you're not going to give them the whole thing you know like the jocco white tea you know you didn't demonstrate not demonstrate explain yeah it did jocco white tea guaranteed to get your deadlift to 8000 pounds boom that's it done next books there's three books you can get way the warrior kid

gets kids on the path. Boom, done. I would have said a lot more about Warrior Kid. That's cool. No need. I don't know, man, but I think like I read Way of the Warrior Kid to my daughter every single night.

One or two chapters, not too long, just one or two chapters. So she wants to read the next chapter. She wants me to read the next chapter that night. I say, no, tomorrow. She's looking forward to it. Every single night, that's just the mantra. The whole way of the Warrior Kid is just a background theme

for life. Yes. It's a good thing to know. Don't be weak, like work hard. All this stuff. I would explain that whole thing. Me? I just say,

only because that's the value that I got. Way of the Warrior kid. If you want a longer explanation, you can email echo and he'll give it to you. Extreme ownership. Same thing. Combat leadership for business and life. That's new version just came out,

has a little Q&A from you all from the podcast. That's in there. So you can get that. Also for an individual perspective, discipline equals freedom. Field Manual. It's available everywhere. There's no better gift than discipline.

The audio version of that, which people ask me about a lot, is not on audible.com. It is on... It's an album with tracks, actually. You can get it from iTunes, Amazon, music, Google Play, other MP3 platforms for leadership.

Also, beyond the podcast, beyond the books, we have a leadership consulting company. It's me, Leif Babin, J.P. Dennell, Dave Burke. You can email info at Shtonel. If you want to book a speaker, don't call a speaker's bureau or a speaker's agent. Don't just go to echelonfront.com, fill out the form and one else will come talk to you and your company. On top of that, we got something called the muster, also known as the muster.

We're doing two of them this year only. Why? We don't have enough room in the schedule to do three again. Washington, D.C., May 17th and 18th, San Francisco, California, October 17th and 18th. Come and get it. Extreme Ownership.com, that's where you register. There's some video stuff about it. Yeah, that's that.

Also, if you want to ask us more questions, or you have answers to questions or points to make outside of the podcast, and you want to get in talking about it. with us you can do it on the interwebs Twitter Instagram and a facey book that is where you can find us echo is at echo Charles and I am at Jocka Willink and to those people out there the soldiers sailors airmen and marines around the world right now standing watch thank you for protecting our nation and our freedoms and a police and law enforcement Thanks for watching our backs here at home and protecting us from evil in our own backyard to the firefighters that walk into fire to keep us safe and the paramedics that keep us alive.

First responders, thanks to all of you for what you do and to everyone out there. Make sure you have a plan. Make sure you have a goal. make sure you have intent make sure you have a mission and then get out there and get after it and until next time this is echo and jocco out