Jocko Podcast - 124: Hardcore Recondo, General James "Mook" Mukoyama. "Everyday is a Great Day. I Have My Faith, My Family, and Live in the Finest Country In The World."

Episode Date: May 9, 2018

0:00:00 - Opening 0:06:00 - General James Mukoyama. 0:27:02 - Escalation in Vietnam. 1:02:08 - General Hackworth. 2:44:47 - Final Thoughts and take-aways. 2:52:27 - Support:  JockoStore stuff, Super Krill Oil and Joint Warfare and Discipline Pre-Mission, THE MUSTER 005 in DC. Origin Brand Apparel and Jocko Gi, with Jocko White Tea,  Onnit Fitness stuff, and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), Way of The Warrior Kid 2: Marc's Mission, The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual, and Jocko Soap. 3:24:51 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 124 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Bullets punched through the chopper as Nev and I jumped out. Together, we ran over to the farthest wounded guy, grabbed him, ran back, and tossed him into the bird. We picked up a second wounded in action the same way, and then a third. Amazingly, without becoming casualties ourselves. But by the time everyone was loaded onto the helicopter, there was no room inside for me.

I stood on the skids and put on my helmet so I could tell the pilot to take off. But I found I couldn't talk. I was so dried out, my tongue had welded itself to the roof of my mouth out of pure fear. I had to open my canteen and drink some water before I could even gasp, let's get this mother out of here. We took the wounded back to base. and returned to the fight. Without anything holding him up now, I couldn't figure out

why Torpe didn't do something about getting his men consolidated outside of that patty. He still kept saying he was pinned down. Finally, I lost my temper. I really chewed his ass over the radio, demanding he'd get cracking and get those men out of that patty now.

Apparently, the next thing he did was put down the radio, stand straight up and begin running from man to man to get them to move back he got mowed down right away and died a short time later maybe i hadn't learned a damn thing at my con or from Dennis Foley's near miss in that minefield i hadn't asked torpey to stand up he didn't need to in order to extricate himself but it hadn't occurred to me that he would i had been playing the game as if Lieutenant Knapp, a natural more seasoned leader was in charge. It was due to the force of my word as his commander that this inexperienced young lieutenant was sent to his death,

like Jim Gardner's. Torpey's death was a big guilt thing for me and has remained so all my life. and that is an excerpt from the book about face, which is by Colonel David Hackworth, a book that we covered on this podcast. In fact, it was the first book we covered on this podcast, and there is a reason for that. The book about face was and is my favorite book. And when I was deployed to Ramadi in 2006,

I read it and reread it every chance I got. Now, the book is about war, but I have always found it to be a book about leadership and, in my opinion, the best book I have ever read about leadership. David Hackworth was born and raised in California, lied about his age and joined the March of Marines and served in the South Pacific in the end of World War II. And then he joined the army,

where he rose through the ranks, serving in the Korean War and the Vietnam War, battlefield commissioned. And over his career in combat, he was awarded two distinguished service crosses, eight silver stars, three legions of merit, a distinguished flying cross,

and eight purple hearts. And in the end, he became an outspoken opponent of how we were fighting the war in Vietnam and that cost him his career in the army. He went on to write these books and was able to pass on the lessons that he learned through these books about face, which as I said, we covered on podcast number two. He also wrote a book called Steel My Soldier's Heart, which is covered on podcast 28.

And unfortunately, he died on May 4th, 2005, before I ever got the chance to meet him but a few months ago someone reached out to me on social media someone by the name of j mukaymukiyama and he was a listener to the podcast and he thought I just might be interested in talking to his father James mukiyama the name looked pretty familiar I thought I recognized it and I quickly realized that this was the full name of one of the men that appeared in both books about face and steal my soldier's heart. The man Colonel Hackworth simply called Mook. And I replied to Jay and said I would be absolutely honored to be introduced to his father,

who was in fact Major General James Mukayama, a retired army officer that had served as a company commander in Vietnam, working directly for Colonel Hackworth. and after some logistical coordination, it is my absolute honor to welcome General James Mukayama to the podcast. Sir, this is an absolute honor. Well, Jocko, it is the same on this side. I've listened to some of your podcasts, especially the one on Steel My Soldier's hearts, and I couldn't stop listening to it. And then I realized I looked at my watch and I said, this is over two hours already. Just because of the way you picked out the really important things that Hack wrote.

In fact, I forgot a lot of the things until you read verbatim some of the things that he said. And he lived what he wrote, I might add. He led by example. Yeah. Well, I definitely have taken a ton of lessons from him over the years, and that's why it's just amazing to be sitting here with you. And let's talk about you, though. Let's talk about how you ended up in the Army and where you came from and what your background was. You know, why don't you take us back to Chicago? Sure. I was born and raised in the inner city of Chicago, a neighborhood called Logan Square, primarily Polish, German, Italian. We were the only minority. family in that neighborhood. We went to a grammar school of 900. My brother and I were the only minorities. So I grew up, I grew up basically in a predominantly white, white environment, but I never felt like I was different, really, because everybody treated me fine. It was,

it was a time in life in the inner city where everybody knew each other. You know, in our neighborhood, our block, we didn't lock our doors. You know, everybody, knew. That's the time when, you know, most mothers stayed at home, and they were the police of the block. So if anybody would come by that was out of order, you know, they would take care of it. But we were, I'd say, lower middle class economically. We never owned a home. We always lived in an apartment building. My father was an immigrant from Japan. My mother was her family was from Japan, but she was actually born in Madison, Wisconsin. And so my grandparents live with us. You know, we all three generations in the same apartment. And I never felt poor.

You know, because we had a strong family. Our church was only three blocks away from our apartment building. Every Sunday, we put on our Sunday best clothes, and we would walk as a family to church. Now it's interesting. You said your dad had immigrated from Japan and your mom was born in Wisconsin. Yeah. Was your mom not, didn't your mom get put in the internment camps with her family during World War II? No, no, no. Here's the thing. My father came to the states in 1918. In fact, that was kind of a funny thing. He was going to sign up for World War I, you know, which was still going on. But then it ended. So he couldn't, he couldn't sign up. And And then when World War II hit, he was too old.

And plus, he was a Japanese. I don't know if you know this or not. Japanese could not become citizens, naturalized citizens of the United States until 1952. And so he was still a Japanese citizen. But he was in Chicago. My family was in Chicago. My mother and father, my brother.

I was born during World War II. And so we didn't have to go to camp. Mostly the 95% of Japanese Americans at that time or anyone of Japanese descent lived on the West Coast in California, Oregon, Washington State, Colorado. And so when the war hit, Pearl Harbor hit, President Roosevelt signed the executive order 906. which called for the all people of Japanese descent to be evacuated from the west coast

and put in concentration camps in the inner part of the country, basically in deserted desert areas. And these camps, they euphemistically refer to them as relocation centers. But they were really, my, you know, your standard concentration camp with bob wire fences, with machine guns facing in, not out, and people not being able to come and go as they pleased. 130,000 people of Japanese descent were put in these camps, and two-thirds of them were American citizens, not aliens.

Okay, and no trials, no, the only crime that they had committed was the color of their skin and their skin, fact that they were of Japanese descent. And so did your family avoid that because they were in Chicago? Yeah, there were only like three or 400 of us in Chicago at the time. And we weren't considered a threat. But the rest of my family, my grandparents on my mother's side and my cousins and aunts and uncles, they were all in California and they all got evacuated.

Just imagine this. it's a Friday night and you get a knock on your door okay it's a local FBI agent and he says on Monday morning be at the corner of Washington and State Street with

two suitcases end of communication okay and you you know you don't have time to do hardly anything and you you know you go there and then you're put on a train you don't know where you're going and you

wind up in a camp and you're there for three years. Okay. So let's say you're an owner of a small business. You lose the business. You no longer have a job, right? So you can't pay your mortgage and things like they lost everything. And now you're 18, let's say you're 18 years old. Okay, and this happened to your family, right? And the local army recruiter comes to the camp and says, I want you to go die for your country. Frankly, Jocko, I don't know what I would have done. I might have told the guy to take a walk, you know, or use other words. And yet, so many of them joined up and formed the 100th Battalion and the 442nd.

Regimental combat team, that's right. And those guys fought with incredible bravery and had some critical battles that turned the tide and some critical situations as well. Yeah, they were the most highly de-dive. decorated infantry unit in the history of the United States Army for its size and time of service. They were a regimental combat team. Let's say about 4,500 soldiers because they had an artillery battalion and other things. They were attached. In about 18 months of combat, they were awarded over 9,000 Purple Hearts.

Some guys had three or four, you know, and if not more. and you know the presidential unit citation you're familiar with that award there are army divisions that never got that award okay that regimental combat team was awarded eight presidential unit citations that's unbelievable yeah they were my personal heroes so that's and that was to kind of get back to your question that was one of the reasons that that i wanted to join the army i was actually going to ask that. So you know, you're sitting here saying if you were in one of those camps, you don't know if you might have to tell them to go take a walk. But when your time came, you, you, you walked into the recruiter's office, not away from it. Yeah. Well, in my case, when I was in high

school, as I told you, you know, faith is a very strong part of my whole life. I've been so blessed in life beyond anything I deserve. And so when I was our church, you know, we go to church every Sunday, I was in the choir, I was in Cub Scouts, I was in Boy Scouts, I was in the youth group. You know, all of this was centered around the church. You know, when I was in Scouts, I went to the National Jamboree in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania with 52,000 of my best friends living in tents. And, but, you know, that was, and what was the symbol of that jamboree?

George Washington at Valley Forge, kneeling in prayer. And the motto of scouting is for God and Country. So that was really my model. And then I was in Boy State. Are you familiar with Boy State? No. Boy State is an American Legion program. Does it still exist?

Yes, yes. And it's been around probably for 50 years now. I went, it was the 25th year, okay? So it's more than 50 years. And the concept of Boy State is they take junior, high school juniors, ready to go into a senior year and who are leaders, basically. And they form a quasi-state government for two weeks. And they actually divide into two political parties. They don't call them Republicans and Democrats. They call them something else. And they have state government, county government, and local city government. And you run for offices. And you actually have to come up with a platform and you debate. And so it's a lesson in civics. But it was

sponsored by the American Legion. So we all lived in like dorms. And the dorms, we had to make our beds so you could bounce a quarter on it. They were all army blanket stuff and cots. But it it was wonderful. It was just a great experience. So when I was in high school, I, but I was very active in my church. I'm kind of a driven guy, and I was the president of my high school youth group at the church, and then I became the vice president of the Chicago Association. Did you play sports? No, well, I was, no, I didn't. And what about your grades? were you? I was, I was, I was valedictorian of my grammar school and high school. And I was, they have valedictorian in grammar school? Yeah. That shows you how well I did in grammar school. I didn't

even know that. And then I, I, I, uh, I was in the band. I played clarinet and saxophone. So I was the first chair clarinet of the band. That was the principal, Woodwin in the orchestra. And so, but anyway, I was, uh, I was very active in my church youth group. And I, I was thinking of, becoming a minister, okay? But then I was in junior ROTC, and Chicago has the nation's largest junior ROTC program. About 30 high schools have it, and it's a great program. People misunderstand J.ROTC. They think it's a feeder for the military, okay? I mean, some of them do go into the military, but that's not the purpose. The purpose is to give these high school students something other than gangs to belong to give them experience in leadership, in discipline, in teamwork, and it's a

tremendous program. So I was in junior ROTC. So it's that combined with your view of the like the 442nd, those things are kind of starting to congeal in your head and maybe move you towards a military type career? And then in addition to that, I have just one sibling. an older brother. He's about seven years older than I am, and he joined the Army as an enlisted guy. But in the first year of college, he was in a military fraternity called purging rifles, which other people like Colin Powell and some others have been in, including myself when I went to the U of I. And you have to understand also that I'm Japanese-American. In the Japanese culture, the warrior, the samurai, is at the top of the social strata.

Unlike China, where the scholar was at the top. In Japan, it's the warrior. So when I joined the military, when I became a commission officer, my dad was so proud. You know, his small T-shirts swallowed large, you know. And when I became a general, it's like, you know, incredible. But I, you know, so I, so I want. Did you do ROTC in college as well?

Oh, yes. See, I'm, I'm a driven guy, right? And, and I was, here's, here's the thing, though. As I told you, I was thinking of becoming a minister, but then I also wanted to serve in the military. So what do you think I would do? Chaplain, perhaps? Exactly.

Little problem. I'm Protestant. And my denomination, theologically, went, so far away from what I believed in that I couldn't buy the theology. So now I'm praying to God, right? And I'm saying, I get the message. I guess you want me to do my military thing. So that's what I did.

Okay? But you fast forward 50 years, 55 years. What am I doing today? I'm doing what I wanted to do when I was in high school because I have military outreach USA, a faith-based nonprofit that I started. So that's a lesson in prayer. And that is at that time, I thought God was telling me no.

He wasn't telling me no. He was saying, wait. It's on my schedule, not on your schedule. I mean, you know, I wasn't mature enough either as a military guy, nor is in my faith. So what year was it that you're showing up in college? 61. I started. So you do four years of college.

It's 1965. Right. Vietnam is really not escalated yet at that point. But did you think? It was pretty hot at that time. And I basically, by that time, I was on the military thing, right? I wasn't going to be a chaplain anymore. So I was in Pershing Rifles.

I was on the rifle team. I was on the drill team. You know, if it smelled military, I was in. Okay. And you have to remember, I had four years of high school ROTC also before I went the Benning. So you're pretty good at your drill, I take it. Oh, I had, I mean, infantry, I OBC, Infantry Officers Basic Course, piece of cake. I mean, I went through that. I was an undergraduate in my class, and in fact, this is really funny. My class, about 200, you know,

brand new second lieutenants, right? About a third of it was National Guard, and about a third were reserves, and there were only a few of us that were regular Army. See, I got a Distinguished Military Graduate Commission, regular Army infantry, right? And so very few of us were regular Army in my class. So our attitude was not really the best, shall we say? So we get the Benning, and they marched us to class. I mean, to us, it was insane. We're second lieutenants.

You know, just tell us where the building is. We'll get there, right? No, we had to march in formation. The Army. So, needless to say, the attitude was not real good. with my company. So the day we graduated, okay, they used to have a award, a streamer

that companies could put on their guide on. It was called the Tiger Tactics Award. You know, this was for really gung-ho, you know, companies and all that, which ours was not, needless to say. Well, the night before we stole one from another company, and we put it on our guide-on.

So on graduation day, we marched by the headquarters and out comes the commander. The guys livid. You say, where'd you guys get that? Oh, you know, it's just disappeared. And we were graduating. What's the guy going to do to us, right?

So we all graduated and that was it. So 1965, didn't you go to, you went to graduate school after? Yeah, here's the thing. You know, I told you, I had the, we didn't have a lot of money for me to go to college. So I knew I had to earn it myself. myself, right? So when I was in high school, my senior year, I worked 33 hours a week. I work from 5 till 10 o'clock at night at a warehouse in Chicago, and I worked eight hours on Saturday so I could raise money. Okay, I also played in two bands. I told you I played clarinet and saxophone.

I played in a Polish band for weddings, and that was so cool because by the third set, Everybody was so blasted, nobody cared, right? But I also played in a Jewish band. So I used to play for bar mitzvahs. So I knew all the temples in Chicago. So I used to tell people I had them coming or going either way. And then I had to, you know, I took out two government loans. And that's the only way I could afford to go to school.

And so 65 rules around. I graduate. And I find this interesting for a real obvious reason. you majored in English in college. Yeah, the reason I did that, Jocko, is once again, you know, I'm a pretty focused guy, and my focus was on becoming the best officer I could be, the best leader I could be of infantry soldiers.

And I knew I was going into combat, right? So as a freshman, I tried to determine what am I going to major in to prepare me for that. So I looked at psychology, and I looked at English, not rhetoric, but English literature. I rejected psychology in my first year because we had these classes with Pavlov and his dogs and all this stuff, you know. And I was going through that and I said, what does this have to do with people?

You know, I mean, I want to learn how to, you know, work with people. Well, literature, whether you read the whole continuum of, you know, every man or Shakespeare or Hemingway, if you read that stuff, there are universal traits of human nature that come out at you okay if you can understand that you can realize what motivates people okay so I and then not only that but if you read the best writers of all time I just felt by sure osmosis I'm not the smartest guy just by sure osmosis you know I could absorb that I could express myself better so that's why I majored in English and I've talked about I was I was an English major as well and I

I was, I was, I was prior enlisted. So I had been in for eight years and actually I'd been in for 10 years by the time I went to college. And I knew right away I was going to be an English major. And the reason I wanted to be an English major, because I had, I'd gotten commissioned and served two years in the, in the seals before I went to college as an officer. And I realized you got to write everything. You've got to read directives from people and you got to understand what they're saying. And then you've got to communicate with your troops. And I wanted to have a good command of the English language.

The part that you talked about, the understanding of human nature was something that I saw once I got in and I started reading. I started applying and thinking about what I was reading. And now this is something that I advocate for everyone to, if you want to really understand human nature, you got to read. Yeah, yeah. So I was, so when I was graduating, you know, when I said that in 1965, the war, because I, what was it, what year was I drank? That was 1965, wasn't it? The Battle of I Deng? I think it was.

I think it was 1965. I think it was. And, you know, they kind of used that as, hey, this is when the real escalation started. And the reason I asked you that specifically is because I've had some Vietnam vets on that were going to college in 1965. And they were like, they hadn't even heard of Vietnam at that point. So I guess it was because I was an ROTC. You know, I was kind of paying more. attention. Yeah. You know, and I knew I was going to Benny. I mean, that was a foregone conclusion.

And you knew you were going to combat as well. Oh, yeah. That was your mindset. Well, yeah, because that was my goal to be an infantry officer, you know. I mean, if I did, you know, that's, that to me was where I wanted to go. And so in 65, I got an, I got an offer to get an assistant ship, you know, to, to be really a counselor in the dorm. But it's like I died. and went to heaven because they paid for tuition and fees, and I got like $100 a month salary, which to me was like... The richest guy in the world. Yeah, you know? But the important thing was I could get my master's degree, okay?

And by the way, I got it in a year because I went to summer school. I wanted to go on active duty, but this was a chance for me to go, you know, on an assistantship and not have to pay for it. But now the pragmatism kicks in for me, you know, because, you know, really with an English degree, as you know, it's great for preparing you to understand things, but, you know, that and 50 cents in those days were getting me a cup of coffee. So I knew I was going to go into combat. I knew I was going to be an infantry officer, and the odds of my perhaps getting wounded, you know, were fairly decent.

So I need to have a fallback, you know, and I wasn't an accountant, so I wasn't an accountant, so I wasn't a CPA or, you know, something like that. So I got my master's in the teaching of social studies so I could be a teacher. You know, you don't have to run the 100-yard dash to be a teacher. And teaching is a noble profession, and I always felt that, you know, it's something I could do if I got wounded

and still contribute to society. And 70, well, you know this, 75% of your time as an officer or senior NCO is teaching. You know, so I figured I want to find out how the pros do it, allegedly. What I found out is the military has the best education system, really does. You know, I didn't have to get my master's degree in history and philosophy of education and Ed Syke and all that stuff. No, didn't need it. So you wrap up, you get your master's degree, and now you know you're going to Vietnam.

What happens when you graduate? Okay, so I go to Fort Benny. I go to Iobc. I'm an undergraduate in my class. Oh, I didn't finish that story. My class that I was in, you know, really bad attitude, guys, right? On the day of graduation, they announced the honor graduates, okay? I was in the third platoon.

So first platoon, they announced the honor graduates in the platoon. Second platoon, they announced the undergraduates. Third platoon, which I'm in. I'm the only guy who's an undergraduate out of my platoon. when they announced my name, everybody booed. Because I ruined our record, right? So what happened is I volunteered for, I volunteered for, well, I was regular army, so I had to go airborne.

I volunteered for Ranger School. But in those days, the West Pointers, all, it was mandatory, they had to go to Ranger School. So I graduated the same time that the West Pointers did. They took up all the quotas. So I didn't, I couldn't get into Rangor. Ranger School. But I had a solution. See, I'm always thinking ahead. I was going to, I applied for Pathfinder School. So I figured I'd go through Pathfinder School. I'd finish that. The West Pointers would be gone. I could slide into the next Ranger class, right? They didn't give me

Pathfinder. So now I'm stuck, right? So I said, okay, I'm volunteering from Vietnam. And they sent me to Korea. So I was in the DMZ in Korea, which is really a God thing. I've got to tell you this, because I was with the second ID on the DMZ. In those days, you were assigned and you stayed there for 13 months on the DMZ. And there was still active combat patrolling. And we'd take casualties during that time period. 13 months, I was there. We had 12 KIA and about 40 wounded.

Okay. So this was not a walk in the park. And it was a great experience for me because in addition to, see, we were in the DMZ. We actually had a company compound, okay, and we actually had a guard mount, you know, and we had our own NCO club, and so we had all the BS of the admin stuff that you do on, when you're in garrison, but we were doing combat patrolling every day on the DMZ. So it was really a great experience for me as a young officer because I was able to lead troops out on patrol, but also I had to do all this admin stuff, you know, the garrison.

And so that was your platoon commander tour. What were the patrols like? What were you doing? Basically, they were ambush patrols because the DMZ was set up where it was a free fire zone. If you saw anyone, you could shoot them because nobody was supposed to be there. Okay. And we would have to see Korean Chong He, which is tell him to stop, you know. but how many times would you say that before you pull the trigger basically?

But we did ambush patrolling primarily. And that was, you said you were lucky or you said it was God that put you there. And you feel that because that's just a really good sort of warm up for combat? Absolutely. That's, absolutely. I feel that way. My first deployment to Iraq was relatively, it was relatively easy, right? We were in Baghdad.

Things were going pretty well. We had the upper hand on the enemy, and we didn't get into too much major combat. You know, we got a few firefights here and there, but it wasn't like when I got from Mardi. And I felt like that, I was real blessed to have had an experience where you get the, kind of the initial nervousness out of your system and you realize, okay, I can do this. That was, I felt pretty lucky about that. Well, also, you know, keep in mind I was just a young second lieutenant shave tail. What did I know, really?

And I was once again blessed. I had a platoon sergeant who really, he was a Korean war veteran. Oh, wow. You know, a guy was actually an E7. Okay. And basically, when I got there, you know, I was his lieutenant. Okay, so nobody screwed around with me. But on the other hand, I listened real carefully.

That's one thing I learned. As a young officer, I've had my success in the military because I had great NCOs who made me look good. And I had commanders who mentored me and didn't cut my head off when I screwed up. And I've made my fair share of mistakes. Haven't we all? You get done with that tour. And then what's your next assignment? So, you know, you get your dream sheet, right?

about where you want to go when you doerose, when you leave that area. And so I put it in for Fort Bragg, for Fort Benning, because I wanted to go to an airborne unit because I was airborne, but I had never served in an airborne unit, right? They sent me to Fort Lewis, Washington. So I go to Fort Lewis, Washington to the training center, infantry training center. Okay. And when I get there, I made a long story short, when I was in Korea,

I also was, they found out I had a master's degree. So they pulled me off the line. And the battalion commander calls me into his office, right? So I go down there and he says, Lieutenant Mukuyama, how are you doing? Sir, I'm having a great time. You know, I'm with soldiers. You know, we're doing combat patrolling, you know,

and I really, and this is what I've been trained to do, you know. And he's, so I'm happy. Okay. So he says, I see you have a master's degree. I said, yes, sir. And he said, you know, our battalion adjutant is leaving. And you have a degree in English? You can see where this is all going, right?

And I said, yes, sir. And he said, well, how would you like to be the battalion adjutant? And I said, sir, I'm honored that you would even consider this. but I'm really happy, you know, leading soldiers. And he said, Lieutenant, I'm not looking for happiness in my battalion. You will report on Monday morning, you know, yes, sir. Okay, so off I went, and I became a battalion adjutant. But that once again was a great experience for me because I learned a lot of the admin stuff.

And unfortunately, I also saw some bad stuff going on, which I also saw some bad stuff going on, which I was not happy with. I saw, you know, because I was the adjutant, what I didn't tell you was that was at battalion level. The brigade adjutant left, and they called me up to brigade to be the brigade. Now, I'm a first lieutenant. That's a majors position, right?

But I happened to be pretty good. I was the best battalion adjutant out of all the battalions. So I go up there, I go up there to brigade to be the brigade adjutant. And what I found was, you know, the officer efficiency reports, the OERs, I knew all the battalion commanders because I dealt with them all. Okay. So if I, Jim Mukuyama, were to rate the battalion commanders based on their leadership, right? And I would have rated them 1, 2, 3, 4, okay? But I saw the reports going through and was 4-3-2-1. and that's because they were looking for managers, not commanders.

And so that was a tough pill to swallow. Eye-opening for you as a young. Yeah, I know when I worked, I was the Admiral's aide, and I saw, I didn't see stuff like that turned me off, but I saw, just getting a better grip on what was happening behind the scenes was very important for me and to help me out, you know, later on. And when you were in Fort Lewis, that's when you first met Hackworth, right? That's absolutely correct.

This was so cool. When, you know, when hack, now I'm a captain. By this time I'm a captain, right? And I'm at the, I'm the secretary general of the, of the SGS. I was the secretary of the general staff, okay? What that means is I was the assistant for the chief of staff. basically. And so I'm, yeah.

Did you know who Hackworth was? Of course. We all, we all. I mean, Hack was a legend, you know. Everybody knew who he was. But also because I had that job, one of my functions was, I was the guy who coordinated the general schedule and the chief of SAS schedule. And Hackworth was reporting into Fort Lewis as a new battalion commander.

Okay. Well, whenever a new battalion commander came in, I always did research on the person, you know, so I could tell the general, you know, here's the guy who's coming, here's his background. Well, Hacker's was, you know, Mr. Infantry, basically. And so when he came to see the general, he walks into the headquarters. You know, I'm sitting behind this desk. He walks in.

So I stand up. You know, I say, welcome Colonel Hackworth to Fort Lewis. You know, the general will be with you in 10 minutes, you know, because he came early, right? The first words out of Hacquard's mouth, I'm not. kidding. First words, what are you doing sitting behind the desk? He said, you should have a company. He said, if you want one, I'll give it to you. Okay. The guy doesn't know me from Adam, right? I mean, you know, but, you know, I was pretty sharp in the way of warmer uniform. I did have, you know, my jump wings and my, I have an expert infantryman's badge, okay? and I had my EIB

and that's it I didn't wear any ribbons or any that stuff and just the stuff that counted as far as I was concerned and so HAC saw that

you know and I said Colonel I really appreciate you know what you're saying but I came to the same conclusion that you did a couple months ago and I've already

talked to a battalion commander who's accepted me to take one of his companies so I'm committed to him sir so I can't you know, I'd love to take you up on your offer, but I can't because I committed to the Southern Battalion commander. And HAC said, I understand totally. Okay.

Well, that turned out to be another God thing because later on, as you know in the book, he and I got together and we saved a career of a drill sergeant. I just want to hear a little bit more about this because it's something that I haven't been able to gather from anyone. And, you know, in my mind, you know, I thought everyone must look at hack like, you know, this guy's Mr. Infantry, as you put it. But I also would say to myself, well, you know, here's, I'm thinking that because he wrote these books and because I studied him. But that was an actual thing. People knew who he was by his reputation throughout the army. Yeah, it was not only his reputation, but his appearance. I mean, you know, his neck was probably the size of my waist.

I mean, this, you know, Hackworth was just, you know, and he always had, you know, he wasn't bald like today, you know, but, you know, eighth of an inch, you know, razor sharp, you know, sides and all that. And what I didn't say is when he, Hackworth had this unique ability to size people up when he saw them, like when he said that to me. And I've said this before, but Hackworth's, his philosophy was you were either a dozen. or a stud and there was nothing in between and he had this uncanny I've seen it dozens of times where he actually did size guys up and I never saw him miss on that evaluation he just had this this instinct you know to size guys up and that's and that's why he was successful as a commander because one of the principles is to surround yourself with good people and so when he came to a unit

And he found some guys that weren't cutting it. They were gone. I mean, especially in combat. You know, he can't tolerate that. You know, and he would, and he had the strings that he could pull. He had the relationships all over the place, it seems. That's right. Now, how did, when did he leave with, to, to go to Vietnam and take over the battalion?

He probably let's see, I left in May of 69. So it was probably end of 68 or maybe. early 69. And he goes over, and he's over there for a few months, and then he ends up needing, well, he wants to surround himself with good people again. And so he reaches out to you? Yeah. How does that happen?

Well, you know, I was still at Lewis as an AIT company commander. And another thing I should tell you, at that time, I'm not real happy with the Army, because they never gave me any assignment or anything I ever asked for. Yeah, you're like 0 for 4 at this point. Well, wait, are you ready for this? What I didn't tell you was in graduate school, I majored in Japanese history and Chinese history and political science and Japanese language in my master's of social studies, okay?

And I happened to be Japanese-American. I happened to have had a tour in Korea, right? where by the way, I didn't tell you, I got some awards from the Korean Army. So now the Army comes out with the Foreign Area Specialty Training Program or Fast. And the concept was a great concept. You know, in Vietnam we got caught with our pants down because we didn't have any Army experts in Vietnam. Nobody knew the culture, nobody knew the language, the politics, sound familiar. And so basically, the Army said, okay, we're going to develop.

geographic experts for the whole world. Okay? And we're going to call it the FAST program. So I saw that, and it was in the Army Times. They said, if you have an interest, call this number, you know. So I called, you know, and I said, hey, pull up my record. You know, you'll see, you know, I've got my master's degree in Far Eastern Affairs. Ethnically, I'm Japanese.

I've got a tour in Korea where I got some awards from the Korean Army, okay? And I'm regular Army, right? What are my chances getting in this program? They should be 100%, right? Are you ready for this? The first words out of the guy's mouth,

you haven't been to Vietnam. And I said, well, that's right, but if you'll go back in my record, you'll see I volunteered for Vietnam. And the Army sent me to Korea. Okay? He said, but that doesn't count. Okay.

The second thing he said was you haven't been to career course, advanced course for officers. Well, he got me there. I hadn't, you know, I was just a young captain. I hadn't been there. So in essence, he's telling me, you know, come back in a couple of years and maybe we'll think about it. You know, he didn't give me any encouragement. He didn't say, hey, you're a natural for this program. You know, I'll keep on monitoring your career, you know, blah.

He didn't do any of that stuff. And about that time, I got the letter from Hackworth saying, Hey, Mook, we got a war going on. If you want a company, it's yours. And, like, I hit the lotto. And frankly, I was thinking of, you know, resigning my regular Army commission, but I hadn't been to Vietnam yet.

And I was a bachelor. I had a lot of my friends who were married, who were going back for their second and third tours, you know, and I felt an obligatory. And not only that, but I figured, well, maybe if I go, I'll change my mind. And serving under Hackworth would be the best opportunity I could have. So I jumped at it, you know, and I went.

But things did not change. How did you get orders? I mean, you know, I know Hackworth had some relationships with people, but just to get a guy deployed to be in his battalion, how did he pull that off? What did it look like? Well, I mean, I called my infantry officer assignment guy, whom I never spoken to in the five years I was on active duty.

right because i always felt that i shouldn't be managing my own career you know if i if i did my job that the army would you know i'd i'd be treated okay you know well none of that ever happened right so i called this guy at the pentagon and i say hey i'm volunteering for vietnam again and he basically said well okay you know give me your phone number in case we lose connection here and and And then he said, but I have a stipulation. I need to go to the 9th Division. And he said, okay, I can make that happen. When do you want to go?

I said, as soon as possible. And this is February. And he said, well, I can get you there in August. And I said, no, that's not soon enough. He said, how about April? I said, sold. So I got orders to, you know, now everybody told me in the world at that time. Here I am.

Infantry, regular army, captain. going to Vietnam. When I hit the Repo Depot, they could assign me anywhere. You know, orders meant nothing, you know, because captain's infantry captains were a dime a dozen. So when I get to Vietnam, everything was greased. Ninth Division. I went from the ninth, I went from Saigon right to the ninth division at Dongtam. You know, I'd land there, I got my orders to his battalion. It's all all greased. weren't you doing some kind of like Vietnam indoctrination for a week long and and hack pulled you out two days into it or something? Yeah, I was so upset.

They had a five-day in-country training program for newbies, okay? Especially, you know, well, you know, in the Delta, I'd say 85% of our casualties were from booby traps. And so we were, and there was a special terrain, you know, with, rice patties and canals and, you know, just the whole thing was totally different. And so they had this five-day training course to acclimate you and to understand the booby traps and the terrain and all this stuff. And I'm in it for two days and I'm pulled out of the course. And I put on a helicopter and they take me down to, you know, the battalion fire support base.

And I'm madder than a wet hen, you know, and I go to half and I say, sir, you know, how can you do this to me? I mean, you know, I'm trying to learn how to stay alive, you know, so I can, and he said, Mook, you don't need that stuff. I know you. You know, yes, sir. Yes, sir. And when you showed up, so for those of the, haven't read the books or listened to the other podcast about this, Hackworth had showed up, he was requested by name to go and take over

the 439th in Vietnam, which was a, which was a battalion that was having a lot of problems. And he went in there and he fixed it. I mean, that's, there's no simpler way to put it. went in there and squared that battalion away and made them from hopeless to hardcore is the terms that get used when you showed up the heat already been there for a while so things were pretty solid at that point oh they were they were so good it was incredible in fact the first guy i met when i when i got there was our battalion s four his name was mario takahashi he was actually a a national guard guy from hawaii he was about

six two or six three big Japanese guy you know not like me how tall was Hackworth Hackworth because you just you made it sound when you said talking about his neck was he like a big because he in pictures he always looks pretty lean and and not very physically large well when I I mean he was stout okay I mean he wasn't he wasn't real huge he wasn't real tall but just the way he carried himself that's what I always envisioned Was he was just a guy that if you walked away, go, I bet that. You know, how tall was Hackworth? Oh, he's 6, 8.

Yeah. You know, and then you find out he's whatever, 510 or something. And not only that, but I'll tell you, he, when I became a general later on in life, and he came to one of my, every year I used to have a leadership conference for my, my officers and my NCOs that I would invite speakers to come to. And Hackworth came to one of my conferences. And he visited me in Chicago when he was doing his about-face book, right? And so he invited me and my wife and kids to have dinner with him one night.

You know, he always said, bring your kids. You know, some guys would say, no, just, you know, bring your wife or whatever. Because my kids were fairly young. And then weren't real young. They were maybe eight or nine, you know, at that time. And my wife and the kids actually commented about how soft-spoken. Hackworth was. He wasn't a blustery guy, you know, among guys. Yeah, but, you know, in the, in public with, you know, women and family members, he was, he was a gentleman, which kind of surprised my

wife, because I had told him well about him, you know, and so, but that's, that's how he was. And, and so the, the battalion when you show up, it's just, the guys are really on board with what's going on. Oh, absolutely, because I got there probably three weeks before our famous, but it wasn't really a battle on 22 May, where we decimated a VC training battalion, basically. And I remember being at the talk, you know, when he's planning while this Hackworth had this innate quality,

just smell out the enemy, you know, even with all the intelligence we get and all this stuff, you know, he was able to figure out what they were doing. And so he set us up for that night. But to answer to you address what you were saying, by the time I got there, Takahashi was the first guy I met, okay? He was really a strong straight shooter, and he was the S-4. And so he got all the equipment for the battalion and he got it whatever way he had to get it you know and then i meet the next guy i meet is another is a company commander and the guy was like six three or something you know so i'm seeing a pattern here right and i'm five foot five okay and but here's a cool thing about this one of the other company commanders his name was don mire and by the way hackworth had this really

cool way of of uh using words and terms and titles that, you know, like our companies were not Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta. They were alert, battle, Claymore, and Dagger. Okay? And the Claymore Company Commander was a guy by name of Don Myers. Don Myers was my roommate in college at the University of Illinois. And we both were infantry, ROTC guys, right? And then later, he was with 101st, and he was wounded, so they shipped.

them to Fitzsimmons. And then they assigned him to Fort Lewis, which was where Hackworth and I were. So Don and I were roommates again at Fort Lewis, Washington. Okay? So then Hackworth ships to Vietnam, and he takes Myers with him. Okay. So now Myers, who, by the way, is six foot three, right? And his nickname was Lank, you know.

And when he and I were in college, his roommates, it was like mutton Jeff, you know. and I wasn't the tall guy and so anyway but as you as you can understand to have I commanded battle company and he commanded

Claymore Company and I knew that if we were going to run into any crap you know that he would be there for me and he knew I would be there for him and that was that was

it just it was really good yeah that that whole thing with names is something that I completely ripped off from Hackworth when I was a task unit commander. Our task unit was called, well, there was Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. And I had Bravo. And immediately when I took it over, I changed the name from Bravo to Bruiser. And that changed the attitude of people.

It really does. Well, also, as you know, all elite units have greetings and countersigns, right? So for the hardcore, our motto was hardcore, That was what the greeting was. The counter sign, which I cannot say totally, was no effing slack. But I'll tell you, there were a guy, I saw this, eyewitness this. There were guys who were wounded on stretchers, and Hackworth would walk up to them, and they'd salute them and say hardcore econo.

What kind of missions did you do when you showed up there? So you take over your company commander? Yeah, they were, they were, they were a problem. They were just really recon, search, and destroy. Not really destroyed, but, you know, we were seeking out the VC. But as it got closer to, we knew we were leaving, right? Because President Nixon had said that, you know. So it just got to be, you know, recon the area, make sure they weren't there.

If they were there, we get into firefights, but it didn't happen very often. And there's mostly booby traps and things. And basically, that was it. I mean, because they're smart. They knew we were leaving. So why get into contact? Right, right. You were showing me some pictures earlier.

Your pretty famous picture that got published. It's someone, your RTO had just been wounded. What was the story on that situation? Yeah, this is one of our operations. and there was a booby trap, and he got a sucking chest wound from it, and I got a little shrapnel, not a lot. And basically I called in a METAVAC helicopter, and the helicopter came in, unbeknownst to us,

there was a UPI photographer on the helicopter. And he snapped a picture of my guys carrying my wounded RTO on a stretcher towards the helicopter, and that became like the U.P. picture for the day that went around the world, you know, the Vietnam photograph. I didn't even know it existed until three years later. I was out, I was off of active duty. I was reading on U.S. News and World Report magazine, and the picture was like three inches by four inches in the magazine. But it was all my soldiers, you know, and I saw it, and I said, hey, and then I saw I was in the picture, so I'm kind of in the picture so you can see me. So I got the photo from them.

I get asked a lot, and it's something that I don't have any experience with, is what it was like having draftees as, you know, I was in all volunteer military. And then on top of that, you know, the unit I worked with, we were all volunteered again. You know, you volunteered to come in, then you volunteer again to try and be in the SEAL teams. And people ask what it was like working with draftees. Now, Hackworth's opinion was draftees were good because they didn't care about their career. And if they thought something was wrong, they'd say, hey, this is crap. We don't want to do that. Or, hey, you're not telling the truth to us.

And so he thought it was good, and it kept the army in check. But there still had to be some leadership differences in dealing with. And later in your career, obviously, you started working with the all-volunteer army. What did you notice about the draftees that you learned from? Well, the draftees, just like, and it doesn't make any difference. So your draftees or volunteers, it's. depends on the leadership. And, you know, they'll respond the good leadership. And the, the draftees were like anyone else, once you're in the position, you're going to do the best you can,

especially when you're in combat, because you want to survive. And by that time, it gets to be a bonding thing. You know, you're not there fighting for liberty and justice in the American way. You're fighting for the guy to the right of you and the guy to the left of you, basically. because every day you're living together, you're dying together, you know, and so it's a function of leadership, and the draftees were great guys. I mean, I'd serve with them anywhere. In fact, I didn't even know who was drafted. I didn't care.

I didn't ask, you know, whether they're draftees or volunteers, although the vast majority of our guys were draftees in the fourth or the 39th. And that's what was so cool about it, that Hackworth could take that, battalion and turned it around. I mean, I heard stories because I came later on, you know, but he had a price on his head initially. Yeah, a price on his head from his own guys in his own

battalion. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But nobody had the gonads to step up and claim the price, so to speak. I mean, one of the things he talks about, and again, I've talked about this on another podcast, but you know, when he showed up, everyone had whatever, they had guitars and they had radios

and they had, you know, big hammocks for themselves. And he got there and said, okay, anything that you can't carry on your back is going to be in the middle of our base tomorrow morning. It's getting shipped out on helicopters. So people went crazy. Are you kidding me? Well, not only that. You know what he did? I'm sure you know this, but he took away Class A meals. Oh, I did not know that or I don't remember it. Because they were so, they were so, how to say this nicely, they were not disciplined, okay? Because they had lousy leadership before that. Hackworth basically said, you know, you guys are soldiers.

And he said, I'm going to keep you alive, you know, but you're going to have to soldier. So he actually took Class A's away initially. He made them shine their boots. I mean, you know, stuff that sounds crazy. Yeah. You know, but he was getting their attention. Yeah. You know, and cleaning weapons.

I mean, they would, you know, they were not cleaning. I mean, how crazy is that? They weren't cleaning their weapons. At nighttime, there was night discipline. The light discipline was almost non-existent. I mean, it was crazy. And Hackworth made them, you know, soldier up. But then what happened was they started to use his tactics.

And they found out that, hey, this works. I mean, we're not taking casualties like we did before. We're actually inflicting casualties that we weren't doing before. And then he started to give stuff back. Oh, you know what else he did? He took away beer initially. I mean, beer was like water. I mean, you know, the average temperature was like 95 degrees, you know, and all that.

It was like 3.2, whatever the beer was. You know, but he took that away initially, too. I mean, and people thought he was nuts. Yeah, actually, there's a great quote about face. It's some guy writing home to us. It's just a quote from a letter somebody wrote out, wrote, you know, my new battalion commander's crazy. I don't know what's going to happen.

That's literally a letter or a guy right home. It's interesting to me. So I've seen this, and I'm sure you've seen this in your career. I've seen it in the business world. I'm sure you've seen in the business world in the military. Guys that go so far in that direction of being so hardcore and over the top that they break their guys. And people actually don't like them. And they don't want to serve them.

And they don't want to do a good job because they're, they're too focused on stuff that doesn't really matter. And Hackworth just, he seemed to have this ability to balance it so well between being hardcore and yet at the same time, everybody knows that he's going to take care of him and he loves him. Yeah, that was the main thing because they knew that they were going to live under his command if they followed what he said. And they would be successful, too.

don't forget that success breeds success and so the hardcore as they kept on progressing became

prouder and prouder of you know and the guys it was just a unit that nobody wanted to reckon

with and that's how it was but hack led by example I can't I just can't emphasize that enough

you know I have my leadership mantra which and I'm a simple guy so I boil things down simply and to three words example carrying and balance and you got to lead by personal example it's not you know do what I say but do what I do and carrying is to care for your soldiers and you know carrying means especially in combat keeping them alive that's how you care form and you train tough you know i mean hackworth always mentioned that you know the harder you train

you know the the better that they'll perform in combat in fact sometimes it was easier in combat than you know some of the training that he'd make them go through and and finally is balance to especially leaders now i'm talking to leaders right and i always told my leaders that you've got to maintain a balance between your professional military job and your family. And I used to tell my guys, you're not doing me any good if you're going through a divorce. And too many guys, it's easy when you get promoted to get kind of caught up in the perks and in the responsibility, you know, so you work harder to be more. And then what do you do? You ignore your family. And then things fall apart. And so I

warned my soldiers. I always said, you know, maintain that balance. And I tried to do that not only personally, but to get my when we were mobilized, for example, my division. Now this was not, we didn't deploy overseas. We were a training division. Our wartime mission was, the Army Reserves,

by the way, was the only service that had this. We had reservist whose wartime mission was to take over the training. of the recruits at the active duty stations, which would then release those active duty soldiers to go join forces. It made a lot of sense, you know. So when that happened, I went to my staff.

Now, you have to understand, this is like the late 80s, right? Okay. And I went to my staff and I said, I want a 24-hour 800 number from my family's. support program. I want my soldiers to know, and I want their spouses to know, that while they're deployed, if there's any problems, they can count on us. And I want it to be 24-7, man. And they said, General, you have to understand, those days, 800 numbers were pretty expensive. And they said, you know, number one, it's going to be expensive. Number two, you know, 24-7? You know, and I said, make it happen.

Because the last thing I wanted my soldiers who were deployed to worry about was their families. Right. And then what I did is I, yeah, I had the two-star stationery, you know, as a major general. Little notes, you know, they're not eight and a half by 11. They're little note things. So I told my staff, I want to send a personally signed note to every spouse or significant other of a deployed soldier in this division and I want a note to go to their employer

because you have to understand these are reservists right okay so I had 1,500 soldiers mobilized right so this is 3,000 letters that I'm going to sign personally they wanted me to use an auto auto pen you know by by computer

you know manufacture your signature I said no way these are going you know so I I did that and what happened was I was I had a cousin whose husband was a steel salesman okay and she calls me one day and she said you'll never know what happened to my husband he was making a call on this company in Indiana okay and on the wall was one of my letters very cool to the and he saw my name on it you know so carrying for your carrying and balance is important. Yeah, yeah. You know, you talked about that operation that was so well planned and so well executed,

and you talked about Hackworth's sort of sixth sense instinct. And then, you know, I've heard you talk in some other interviews about a situation that you were in, that was that you described as really sort of impacting your mental state. And to me, when I heard you talk about it, it seemed to be almost like a turning point mentally, psychologically for you. And it had to do with you overrunning a position and you end up with some.

Yeah, I didn't realize the impact of that incident until many, many years later. But in order for me to explain that, I have to talk about something. called moral injury, which is one of the so-called invisible wounds of war. A lot of people are familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder. A lot of people are aware of traumatic brain injury, but when you ask them if they could describe the invisible wound of war called moral injury, very few people are knowledgeable about that. How long has that term been used? There was a psychiatrist at the VA, Dr. Jonathan Shea, who basically coined that phrase in 2009. So it's been around for a while, and now it's starting to really pick up steam in research

because of its significance in contributing to the high suicide rate among veterans. and the concept is when I go around and I give presentations and I tell people the concept is so intuitive you'll get it in 30 seconds okay so here it is from the time you're born until you're 18 years old you develop a personal moral code sense of right or wrong that could come from your family your religion community friends whatever and then you join the military

and you learn a warrior code. The warrior code is superimposed on your personal moral code and in fact transforms it somewhat. Then you might have to participate in activities or operations that violate your personal moral code, such as killing. You don't have to be the person that pulls the trigger. You could be a witness, or you could feel that you should have prevented it, or you could be in a unit that follows another unit and you see that innocent civilians have been killed

or you handle body parts. At that time you sustain a so-called invisible wound of war called moral injury. It's not a physical wound. You can't see it. But in military operations, we're constantly moving. You're going from point A to point B to point C. You don't have time to stop and reflect on this stuff. So what do you do? You bury it. And it becomes unresolved, grief, shame. And what happens is you come back to the states and let's say you leave the military or you're in the National Guard or Reserves. And you come back to a community anywhere in the country that doesn't understand what you've been through. And it boils up to the surface. And unless you have a strong copier, mechanism for that. Bad stuff happens. Anger, guilt, depression, suicide. And the suicide rate among veterans today is epidemic. I mean, the VA, it's anywhere from 20 to 22 veterans per day are dying by suicide. And that, frankly, is underreported. It's really higher than that. Because you've got veterans who are dying by suicide, it's not reported as a suicide. They'll drive their

motorcycle or car into a tree or viaduct and it's a vehicular accident or unfortunately there's something called suicide by cop where they forced the law enforcement officer to take lethal action and so what's what's the implication of all that we lose more veterans to suicide in a year than all the combat deaths since 9-11 that's how dramatic it is and we believe that moral injury is a major contribution contributing factor to that. And Military Outreach USA, our organization, we feel that the main approach to moral injury is not a medical doctor with prescription drugs. It's the forgiveness and grace of a moral authority and the counseling of clergy and sensitive therapists and the support of a community offering hope and help. And so now getting back to that,

that incident that you asked me about, Jocko. I was a company commander battle company. We had just overrun a Viet Cong position and killed numerous enemy. And I literally had three dead bodies at my feet. Okay. Well, the time of unit is most vulnerable is right after a victory. It's just human nature to let your guard down and breathe a sigh of relief. Well, I'm the guy in charge.

I know that. So I'm on my radio and I'm kicking rear end and taking names. I'm telling my platoon leaders, reorganize your units, redistribute ammunition, take care of your wounded, look for enemy avenues of approach for a counterattack, right? And in the middle of all that stuff going on, I stopped. And I looked at the three dead bodies at my feet.

I realized that something had happened to me, something had hardened my heart only moments earlier these were alive human beings they had families they had emotions they had loved ones they were fighting for something as important to them as I was fighting for

and I was in their backyard and then I remember Jesus' sermon on the Mount where he told us to pray for our enemies so in the midst of all this stuff going on I said a prayer for the three be at Kong. And I know I was praying for myself as much as I was praying for them. Now, you know, I didn't have a big ceremony, get on my hands and knees, any of that stuff. You know, this all took

about 45 seconds. But it's something that was seared in my heart and mind for the rest of my life. And now that I know about moral injury, okay, which I didn't know at that time, I realized that I was one and a million who was able to address my moral injury at the time that happened. Okay. And, you know, I'd always, when I came back from Vietnam, I had seen a lot of my comrades having nightmares, having flashbacks, you know, personality changes. And I frankly asked myself, how come I'm not going through that? Okay. And at the time, my answer always was my faith and my wife, my wonderful wife of now 46 years who is an angel. I've been so blessed having her for a wife.

So that was my answer, okay? But now since I've been dealing with military outreach USA and this issue of moral injury, I realized that my answer was really lacking. There were two other things. One was that incident in Vietnam that I just mentioned to you. But the other thing, which I now realize, is when I came back from Vietnam, I joined the reserves.

And I was able to maintain my sense of purpose of being in a unit with other people who shared the same values that I did, of patriotism, of dedication, of selfless service, which a lot of veterans, when they come back, they just want to cut ties totally. and a lot of them drift because they don't have that sense of purpose. They don't have the camaraderie.

They don't have the bonding. You know, I had that with the reservists, especially, you know, with Vietnam and all the BS that we had to take from the public. You know, I mean, you won't believe this. Well, I know you know this. But when we came back from Vietnam, we were told not to wear our uniforms in public.

I mean, that's how bad it was. Crazy. You know, guys wore wigs, so people wouldn't know they had short haircuts, you know, because they could pick them out as being military. And so my being in the reserves helped me, you know, maintain that. One of the things that I tell guys is very similar to what you just said. You know, I tell guys you've got to find a new mission when you get done. When you get done with the military, you've got to find a new mission.

And if you can stay in the reserves, obviously that that gives you. you that, but if you don't do that, well, then you got to find what are you going to do? What are you going to step out there? Are you going to become a great dad? Are you going to build a business? Are you going to work for a company and do a great job? You've got to find a new mission. And I find that guys that I've seen that have real problems, it's because they got out and they didn't know, they didn't have any direction to go into. And also, just to dig a little bit deeper. So you're in that situation where you see these guys and for the first time you kind of looked down on them and see them as people, as other human beings. Is it, you know, is it the fact that you,

when you, when you set a prayer for them and for yourself, I kind of got a thought of when you hear about like Native Americans hunting and, you know, they, they thank, you know, when they get a kill, they'll, they'll thank, you know, Mother Nature and thank for the sacrifice. Was it that type of thing where you said, okay, you know what we're fighting, I was doing my job, you guys were doing your job, and I hope you have peace now. Was it that type of thing? Absolutely, because, you know, what happens is you forget that they're dehumanized. You know, you've got all these names that you call them, you know, but I really respected the VC, our enemy.

You know, and that's the other thing. You can't underestimate your enemy. You always have to respect them. You know, I mean, you don't have to agree with them, but you have to respect their abilities because once you lose track of that, you can really get screwed. And basically, I'll give you some examples.

When we had that battle on 22 May, okay, I was in the CNC, helicopter with and I guess I should describe that battle a little bit more so your listeners we're talking about the hardcore battalion and when we surround this this VC training battalion really is what it was and we annihilated it basically they were in they were encircled and we were just calling in air strikes naval gunfire you know we were just take and then hackworth had him totally encircled. And so I'll never forget I was in the helicopter with him.

And he basically said, Mook, we got a, first we get a radio message from one of our companies. It might have been an alert company. And they said, we just had a contact. You know, we killed three. We got four weapons. We captured a guy or whatever. And they're headed in this direction.

Okay. So Hackworth would turn to me and say, Mook, you know, let's say, give them 15 minutes. we're going to hear from Battle Company. 15 minutes later, Battle Company comes up. We just had a contact, you know, and they're heading. So this happened all day. Okay, I saw this.

I was with him in the helicopter. But there was one VC. We were flying near a canal, and he was mortally wounded. You could see the guy was dying, basically. He took his AK-47, and he threw it into the canal. Okay. And the reason he did that is he didn't want us to get that weapon.

Because part of the body count was you matched how many weapons. If a unit reported, they said, well, we kill 20 and we got one weapon, you kind of say, wait a second. So when I saw that, I knew that this guy, you know, we were up against a tough enemy. You know, and so you got to respect your enemy. I want to pull some, before we move past Vietnam and HACC, I want to pull some stuff out of AboutFace just to kind of hear your thoughts on it.

I'm going to start off with one that you've talked about a little bit, but here we go. This is from About Face by David Hackworth, and this is a quote from someone else. It says, Hack had the knack of being able to size people up very quickly, almost instantaneously. And I'd say 99% of the time he was right. He could look at a person, and in his vernacular, the guy was either a stud or he wasn't.

There was no in between. If he was a stud, Hack would find a way to get him. And he would not take no from people if he wanted them, because he wanted a winning team. And if a person didn't want to go with him, then immediately. the guy wasn't a stud, you see, because anybody who knew hack or came into contact with him really wanted to be with him after he'd known him for a while. And that's a quote from Brigadier General James H. Mukayama, which is you. You're quoted in the book. And you've talked about that a little bit. And he just, he must have had an extremely magnetic personality

for you to say that if you spent time with him, you wanted to be with him. Oh, absolutely. And he I used to say he had the Midas touch. Everything the guy touched, just whether it was in the military, whether it was in business, whether it was with women. And this guy, you know, he was a stud himself.

And, you know, but he was, he was also a sensitive guy. I'll never forget when, you know, I tell people he wasn't the most moral guy that I knew. But he was, the most ethical officer I ever served with. What I mean by that

is he never did anything for personal gain. He always did things for the unit and for the soldiers. But did he have affairs and things like that? Yeah, and he used to tell me, he said, Mook, you know, I should have never married because my love is the army. You know, so he basically, he turned turned down the war college. He could have gone to the war college. He turned it down because he said,

hey, I want another battalion in Vietnam. He would have been a general. There's no question about it had he not stood up, you know, when he was in 06. And, you know, I think he was the youngest 06 at that time in the Army. But he was a guy who was, he was sensitive, though. And he took care, he did take care of his family. I can say this now because it's, you know, I think statute of limitations might be gone. But, you know, in those days, you weren't, you weren't able to take a lot of cash out of Vietnam, you know. And I basically, one day, he knew I was going back home. Oh, and by the way, he did everything he could to convince me to stay, to extend in Vietnam. Okay, he was, he had moved down to be the, the senior advisor for the Arvin Airborne division, which is really the palace guard around Saigon.

And he knew all my hot buttons. You have to understand, I was a bachelor guy at this time, right? And the Airborne, the Vietnamese Airborne wore special fatigues. They were like tiger fatigues. And they had red berets, you know, and I'm just this young stud guy who likes uniforms. and he said, Mook, he said, why don't you come down here and I'll make you the G1 advisor? That's the admin guy, right?

And he said, but when you come down, if you're an advisor for the Vietnamese Airborne, you get jump pay. You know, so that's extra money, right? And he said, and I'll give you two R&Rs. Because he knew I wanted to go to Japan and see my relatives. So in six months, he said, I'll give you two R&Rs. Right? So the guy's, you know, he's trying to move the sun and the moon to get me to extend six months. And I said, sir, I appreciate it. But I had some close calls. And I figured the next one would have Mukliama written. That bullet would have Mukliama written on it. And I said, no thanks. You know, I appreciate it. But I'm out of here. So I left.

You know, you're talking about the way he was so pro-armie, and yet he rebelled against the army in a way. And here's another thing from the book. He says, what a mistake it was to listen to the generals of corporate HQ, who were briefed only in zero defect terms, and so far from the cutting edge, expected nothing less. It was amongst the biggest mistakes of the war. The politicians only listened to these generals,

and the generals only listened to themselves. Few people asked frontline soldiers, the only ones who really knew. Could you guys, or could you, because you were pretty close to him, could you sense that his frustration with the army? Did he talk about it with you? Did he, how did he treat?

You know, that's a very hard thing. for a leader to do. If your senior leadership is telling you to do stuff that doesn't make sense but, you know, hey, we can get it done and we're going to do it.

It's a hard line to walk to say, look, we support the chain of command. This is what they're telling us to do. I'm going to spin it in a positive way. Everyone's going to think that we're doing it for the right reasons because if I say, hey, look, MOOC, here's what I want you to do

and it's dumb, but we're getting told to do it anyways, that's not a good way to lead. No, he wouldn't say that. So he would support the chain and, and... He would, he would,

present it in the way in which you know you talk about the mission and he would make sure that he would accomplish the mission but he would do it his way you know you know the phrase battlefield expediency that's what we did all the time you know i mean screw it what you know what are they going to do send us to vietnam we're already there you know so you know we just did what we had to do. And, you know, I mean, the stupid rules of engagement that we had, you know, where you'd have to get approval to fire on people, even though you're receiving fire, you know, and just nutty stuff, you know, and we just say, hey, you know, we're going to do what we have to do, and that's what we did.

Here's when he, when he took over the battalion, the following day I took over the battalion from Lieutenant Colonel Franklin A. Hart in a parade field, change of command in the middle of the May Kong Delta. What kind of war have I got myself into? I wondered. A perfectly starched General Yule was there, having flown in for the occasion in his polished choppers. There was other brass two and photographers, the American flag, the battalion colors, which were ceremoniously passed on to me, and all of this before the scroungiest, most spiritless assembly of soldiers I'd ever seen. Incredibly, none of the generals or colonels seem to notice the slack condition of my new charges or their positions.

From the outset, I realized that to make this unit effective military force, I'd have to implement about a thousand changes. So I figured we'd start with five a day, little things, basic things like wear your steel pot and cleaning carrier rifle at all times, and ammunition will not be worn poncho via style. My first order was that darkness, that come darkness, the fire support base perimeter would pull back 300 meters. The troops instantly began to grumble about this, but it was the next order that really began the mutinous feeling within my hard luck outfit.

Anything you can't carry 24 hours a day is gone in the next chopper. Goodbye tents and cots and rucksacks and food lockers. The bitching and moaning began in earnest as piles and piles of junk mounted at the LZ to be whisked away by Chinook. But I didn't care. I wasn't there to have them. like me. Again, we already talked about this. And I, this comes up a lot from a leadership perspective. Do you, is it more important to be liked or is it more important to be respected?

Is it more important to? And I actually had a guy asked me this question the other day. Is it more important to win or to be liked? And I said, well, those two things aren't mutually exclusive at all. You're right. You're absolutely correct. And they're not mutually. exclusive. You know, if you demonstrate to your soldiers that you care for them professionally, that's, you'll be liked. There's no question because they know that you're there for them. And, you know, you don't, as, as it said there, you know, you're not there to win a popularity contest. You know, you're not there to be politically correct. You're there to accomplish your mission, but also make sure that your guys come back.

And I think I'm starting to tie together something very clearly in my head right now. And that is, you know, your number two rule of leadership, which is caring. And I think if you care about your people and they see that you care about them, that trumps the fact that you want them to do things the right way. Because the reason you want them to do the things the right way is because you care about them and it's going to keep them alive. It makes you successful. yeah absolutely you know i when i was a young officer i well no i at that time when i was a company

after hackworth left we had another battalion commander come in right and he wrote on my o er all my career i had max o ers really good stuff but on this one he wrote that and i'll take this it any day of the week. He said I was too concerned for my troops sometimes. Wow. And I said, okay, I'll take that. Wow. That's, that's an interesting perspective. Yeah. And, you know, this is one of those dichotomies as well, because one of the hardest things about being a leader is obviously you care about your men so much and yet you are going to do things. You are going to put them in situations that it's going to put their lives at risk at risk and that is that is something that every leader has to will least military leaders they have to they have to find a way to get a

handle on that because you love your guys and you want to take care of them but you do have to do your mission yeah and that's one of the hardest things to balance talking about the morality of war a little bit this was a and again this is why you know that the story that I opened up with you see that that one clearly had to do with with having moral dilemmas and having guilt because hackworth gave a guy an order and the guy followed the order maybe not the way hackworth thought he was but the moral injury that he got from that he said lasted his whole life of giving an order and somebody does something and you didn't expect to do him they end up getting killed one of his guys when his guys that he loved gets killed because of the way he led here's another kind of moral situation

going back to the book, they're flying around, they're on a mission. We went down to about 100 feet. The suspects were still running, but this closer inspection confirmed my initial feeling. They were just eight kids, no older than 13 or 14, simply scared shitless as they ran,

looking for cover, carrying neither weapons nor military equipment. No, I told the pilot. I don't give you permission to fire. I'll put an infantry insert on them. I instructed the platoon leader whose men were aboard the four slicks where to land. With gunships covering, the platoon hit the ground.

They immediately received small arms fire and took a couple of wounded. The little kids were, as my savvy pilot had said from the outset, Viet Cong. It was a major lesson learned for me, but one impossible to etch in stone. I had a couple of men wounded who would not have been if I'd just said to blow those kids away. But I couldn't say blow them away because they appeared unarmed.

Yes, they were VC. But they could just as well have been kids ditching school who happened to get caught in the crossfire. Anything was possible. And I suddenly realized it would not be easy this Delta war. It wasn't easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys anywhere in South Vietnam. But here in the Delta, it was damn near impossible. Again, very similar to what my guys dealt with over in Ramadi. It was very hard to tell who was good and who was bad.

And the enemy knew they could just drop the weapon and walk away. And now they were considered innocent, even though 20 seconds prior to that they were shooting. How did you keep your men from becoming so callous that they were just going to, start shooting kids because they suspected they were VC. How hard did you have to keep control of that? Well, my response to that is the American soldier innately is ethical. It's in our culture not to shoot women and children. Now, guys, you know, if they're, you know, that might be something else.

And we do not shoot civilians just, you know, who are, who are caught with, you know, we run across them just because they're there. And we want to take revenge. We don't do that as an army, generally speaking. Now, there are times when people lose it. And I understand that. That's the stress of war. That's happened in all wars. I don't condone it, but I can understand.

And so to answer your question, we really didn't have to, our guys were pretty professional, and I was proud to serve with them. I didn't, I didn't see any of that, okay? Yeah, and this just tells me once again, it's about leadership. I mean, because here you can see Hack clearly leaning towards making sure he's doing the right thing,

even though he's a guy that loves his troops and wants to take care of him, he still leans towards doing the right thing. And from what you're saying, that filtered all the way through the chain of command. And we took an in-depth look. I've actually done two podcasts concerning the Miliy massacre and what happened there.

And it was just so clear that the leadership was completely at fault and the way that they led those troops. And it was, when I went through to try and pull something positive out of the Mili Mali massacre, the positive message that I got from it was that it was one officer who had flown it was Thompson I believe his name was but he had flown over he'd seen what was happening he flew back to base told the the senior leadership this is what's going on

on the ground the senior leadership radioed into the field and said stop killing people and they they literally instantly stopped they stopped the massacre just because a leader stepped up and said stop so good leadership completely changed the situation as it was ongoing. And clearly if there would have been a better leader on the ground that was leading in the right way, it never would have even started. So you can see here from what HACC sang,

the way he led and the way he treated unknown people. And then the way that was carried out through the whole battalion, that's another amazing testament to good leadership. Yeah. And one thing about Mili, which I tell people, is that it was the exception to prove the rule. that United States military, that was an exception.

Oh, yeah, yep. You know, the rule in our military is we don't do that. And that proved it. I mean, I didn't see, you know, there were other armies there who were more ruthless, like the rocks. The rocks were not there at the Republic of Korea. They were not there to win the hearts and minds of the people. They were there to win the war.

So if they would go by a village and they were fired upon, they'd destroy the village. And after a while, nobody fired on the rocks. When Hackworth now gets, he got wounded in the eighth time? Yeah. That was while you were there. I thought you were getting to that when you read that one quote. But the way, now I wasn't there with him when he got his eighth Purple Heart. But I know the story.

And basically, there were guys who were in bad shape, and he lands the CNC in the middle of the... In fact, that might have been it. And maybe they landed it in the middle of a firefight or hacked it. He ordered the pilot to take him down. And he does put the wounded guys into the CNC. Well, the CNC isn't that big. You know, there's no room for hack.

So he stands on the skids. and they take off and he gets hit in the lake. And that was his eighth Purple Heart. Well, after that, you know, he could tell the guys in the battalion, I want you to walk through this wall of fire. And the response would be where do you want us to go? You know, he led by example. But is that what caused the Army to say, okay, we're going to,

did they pull him from the battalion at that point when he got his eighth Purple Heart? Yeah, pretty much that was it. Because what was, if you got three Purple Hearts you went home, Was that the deal? I don't know. I only had one, so I have no idea. But, you know, they basically said, you know, we can't afford to lose you. I mean, if they, you know, if you get killed, I mean, that's a big hit on just the morale.

And, you know, and so you're out of, you're out of there in the field. Okay. So he went up to play coup to become the deputy. He was the G3 Corps advisor for two corps, okay, which was the central. Highlands. And when my company was pulled out of Vietnam and I'd be fused to go, I said, hey, I want to stay here. I called Hack. And I said, sir, you know, I don't really want to go back. Can you use me? I had orders the next day to go to Placu. And then you went up to Placu and you start, you guys were doing advising for the, for the

Marvin? Yes. We were the, we were the MACV. That's the military assistance command, Vietnam people. And I had, there was a close call that I had when this was another moral injury thing, by the way, which I really had really buried, had not really thought a lot about it. But we had an inspection team that went out on these special forces camps, on the border of Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam. And you had Pleisierang, Benhet, Docto, into Central Highlands. And so we would fly into these camps.

And there were three people on this inspection team, so to speak. It was the Deputy Corps advisor, who was an 06, a full colonel, you know, big deal. There was the Command Sergeant Major, highest-ranking enlisted advisor, also a big deal. And I was the young captain, carrying everybody's bags. Note taker or something.

So we land on this special forces camp and we come under attack. And the sergeant major is killed. And he was maybe 20 meters away from me. It was a rocket. And it was just, he was in the wrong place. It could have been me if I was, you know, if it had come in the other direction.

Well, the backside of that story is that he was scheduled to go on R&R the next day to Hawaii to meet his waiting wife to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. Okay. Now, I was just a young captain, but I outranked him. Okay. I could have ordered him not to go on that mission. Why risk it? You know, because he was going to meet his wife the next day. I didn't do that.

Okay? And I've thought about that in terms of survivor guilt and all of that. It was, and that's something that's come up in my, you know, my studying this moral injury stuff. At this point, did you, so now you're working with Hackworth directly and are you starting to sense his, frustration about the war at all? Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah, well, no, more than a little bit because the G3 for the Corps was a fairly corrupt guy, and Hackworth was very frustrated with that. And that's why he left, actually.

Well, let's backtrack. I, yeah, he was moved down to the Vietnamese airborne because he really was not happy. I think he might have been moved. I never really got the story on that, why he went down there. And now at this point, what's your, what are you thinking about in your career and your life? Oh, I'd already decided I was resigning when I got back to the States. And what made you, what made you lean in that direction? Because, I mean, you did more years in JROTC than anyone has ever done before.

And then you did ROTC and you had all that military stuff. And now you got your combat torn Vietnam under. What tilted you in the other direction? I felt the Army was going in the wrong direction when it came to leadership. I thought that they were looking for managers and not commanders. I was in some positions during my career where I had access to officer efficiency reports and I could see where the ratings of the senior officers, the lieutenant colonels, the battalion commanders, where the tendency was to give the managers high ratings, irrespective of their command,

abilities. And then my personal career was not managed very well. Hackworth wanted me to stay. He knew I was thinking of resigning. In fact, that's why he offered me the company, because he thought that experience might turn things around. And so here I am still with Hackworth in the battalion, right? And he contacted his friends at the Pentagon.

And he said, listen, you guys, we got a stud here, and he's thinking of leaving, you know, show him some personal attention. We got a chance to save him. You know, he told me this later, right? So I get this letter from the Pentagon. You know, I'm out in the middle of nowhere, you know. And I, the first letter they'd ever sent me. And they said, Dear Captain Mukuyama, we have reviewed your 201 file very carefully, right?

and we believe you have promise for graduate school. Only problem is I already had my master's degree, which means that they didn't really pay a lot of attention, right? Their review. I showed the letter to hack, and I said, hey, you know, I mean, this is crazy. You know, I'm going to put my career in the hands of these guys, you know, and that pretty well sealed it for me. And so did you submit your resignation while you were still in Vietnam, or did you come home?

As soon as I came home, I did. I wanted to finish the tour in Vietnam, which I did. And then I told the Army, I'm going to be out of here. And so they assigned me to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, right? Because I lived in Chicago. And I finished, I had three months there, and then I was done. And then did you, at what point did you decide you were going to stay in the reserves? Oh, immediately.

Okay. That was never a question. Okay. I was committed to doing 20 years. turned out to be 32, but I, you know, I was committed to doing 20, especially at that time in 70, 71, the reserve components didn't have a lot of combat experience guys. And I felt that it was important, that I tried to help, you know, the reserves be ready, basically. And I had something to contribute.

So that's why I joined the reserves. And then you start on your civilian career as well. Yeah. And what happened there was I worked for a Japanese importing and exporting company. It's called a trading company. And the name of a company was Mitsuian company. It's world-renowned. We used to have a saying that the sun never set on Mitsui

because they had offices in like 165 countries. Okay. And it was a very prestigious company. If anybody, they had quote-unquote Mitsui men. You know, if you were a Mitsui guy, that was a big deal. It was like their Harvard graduates would all go there, you know, and things like that. And I was at the Chicago office. And the problem was I actually experienced reverse discrimination.

By that, what I mean is that I had studied Japanese history, political science, and Japanese language a little bit at the University of Illinois. Okay. And I had a pretty good work ethic, okay. And but they couldn't, it couldn't compute in their mind. I'm talking about the Japanese, okay. All the manager positions were Japanese, like the branch manager, he was a vice president, you know, and all that. I had no opportunity to ever get to even to be a department manager in that company. because they looked at me and they couldn't compute that I didn't speak Japanese fluently.

Okay? So in their mind, I'm the village idiot. You know, even though I had my master's degree, I had commanded a company in combat, I had signed for $10 million worth of equipment. I had more responsibility in life than these guys will ever know, you know, but they didn't get it.

They didn't understand that. So I did that for about five years. I mean, I was treated, well. I have no complaints. And I didn't expect any guarantees, but I had hoped I would have an opportunity to compete. And when I saw that wasn't going to happen, I had a roommate from the U of I who was a member of the Chicago Board Options Exchange. And options trading was just starting at that time. And he was a great visionary, a little week on details. And so he had an operation on the floor of the exchange, and he realized he needed to get a handle on that. And I'm pretty good

with details. So he called me, and he said, Jim, I know you're not happy, you know, where you're at. Would you want to come work with me? And I said, hey, wait a second. You know, I don't have one day of finance, formal education. I didn't know the difference between a stock and a bond, you know, much for less a stock option. And he said, don't worry about it. I know your abilities. You're good with math. You know, this is not rocket scientist stuff. And I said, okay, I'll do it. And that started out a 35-year career in financial services industry. And I became a member of the New York Stock Exchange, the Chicago Board Options Exchange. I was very blessed. I became part owner of company so that enabled me to devote all the time I did in the reserves that I did because

that was part of the deal I made with my friend I said listen if you want me to join you I'm bringing the reserves with me and you have to understand you know if I'm called I'm going and if I'm in the reserves I'm going to give it a hundred percent you know and and but he was he had gone through our TC with me okay so he was he was an army officer, so he understood. So I was able to have a successful career at the same time. And you moved up really quickly through the ranks and the reserves. Yeah, I had, I had, like I said before, Jocko, I had great NCOs who made me look good.

I had commanders who mentored me. I was a brigadier general at the age of 42, and I was a major general three years later. I was the youngest general in the Army at the time. So, yeah, I was challenged. I had great assignments. And so I was very blessed. And my wife supported me through all of this. Without her, I would not have been able to get the first base.

I noticed you mentioned a couple times, General William Levine. Yes. And the impact that he had on you, he was a guy that landed at D-Day at Utah Beach and was one of the people that liberated Doc out. and in World War II. Yes.

Was there any significant lesson learned that he passed on to you? Yeah, absolutely. He, I think he's personally responsible for that balance part of my leadership concept that I've developed over my career. He really emphasized family. And keep in mind, when I joined the reserves, I didn't have a clue about the citizen soldier. You know, those of us on active duty,

what do we know about the garden reserves and their pressure, you know, what they deal with? You know, people in the garden reserves have to balance three balls at the same time, right? You've got your family, you've got your civilian career that puts bread and butter on the table, and then you've got the reserves or the guard, you know, which, you know, and so you're balancing all that stuff. And General Levine, I'll always remember, emphasize the family. He always made sure that we were aware of distresses on the family. You know, when we were gone, I'll never forget in my career, without fail, that's when the furnace would break down.

That's when we'd have a blizzard, so my 95-pound wife would have to go out there and shovel the snow because I wasn't there. You know, our son, Jay, who, you know, he basically was a rascal. when he was the young guy. And my wife had to take him to the emergency room in the hospital like three times. I don't even know where it's at. Three times a week.

And I don't even know where it's at, you know, because I wasn't home. So, you know, the stresses on the, so he really drove that home. And I understood better the stresses on the citizen soldier, which are tremendous. You know, at least when you're on active duty,

you're focused, you know, and you're in a community where everybody is going through the same thing. So they all understand, you know, the stresses on the marriage. They share things. They can help each other out. But in the reserves and guard, you know, the rest of the, you go to a meeting one week and a month, you know,

and unless you're in leadership, you know, that's about it. And, you know, you don't have the bonding and the community strength that you do when you're on average. duty. Yeah, when we got to Ramadi, it was the 228 National Guard Unit out of Pennsylvania and reserve units that were on the ground and they'd been there for, I think they'd been there for 14 months. But boy, they were outstanding soldiers, all of them.

It was a real honor to work with them a little bit and then get the turnover and great guys. You ended up running training for like 21 out of your 25 years in the reserves. that's a lot of training to run. Yeah, I was, and once again, I'd say, you've heard me say this before, it's a God thing. Basically, the Army was the only service that really had a great process where we had reserve units whose wartime mission

was to take over the training centers. like the Great Lakes, Naval Training Center, you know. But the Navy didn't have that, the Air Force didn't have that, the Marines didn't have that. We had reserve units that their wartime mission was to go to Fort Benning. For example, that was my division's mission, was to go to Fort Benning and take over the training of the infantry officers and recruits, not officers, the recruits at Fort Benning.

So that the active-duty soldiers that were already there who were up to speed on everything, you know, could go join fighting units, basically. So that was the mission, all right? So I joined, when I came off of active duty, I joined the 85th training division in Chicago, and that was an infantry training division at the time. And I was with them for 18 years,

and I commanded at the company level, battalion level, brigade level, and I was the assistant division commander. and every year we would go on annual training to an active duty training fort and we take over the training of the recruits so I did it at Dix I did it at Fort Bliss I did it at Ford Ord and then finally with the 70th I did it at Fort Benning and so then what happened was I was I was the commander of the 70th division out of Labonia, Michigan, and Desert Storm came. Okay. And I knew we were going to be mobilized. You know, the handwriting was on the wall. Okay. So I put together a list of, I had 16 subordinate units in my, I had three brigades and the training command and other things. And so

I made a list of one through 16, and I prioritized them. okay and I and it was a mixture of readiness and leadership you know that's how I prioritize them and I also had to be sensitive to I had units in Indiana and Michigan so I couldn't take all the Michigan units and leave out Indiana guys that wouldn't have been fair because everybody wanted to be mobilized yeah okay you have to understand this was this is when this would be the first same, okay? And we've been practicing for like 25 years. You're ready for game day. Yeah, so the question is, if the balloon went up, would people show up, you know? And so I had this list, and I went to Treydock, which was our higher headquarters at Fort Monroe, Virginia. And I said, listen, here's my list.

Here's my division. Okay. I said, use this list. And if you're going to mobilize my division, or any part of my division, do it in this order. And don't screw with this. This is the best way, this is the best way my division will serve, you know, the army. Did they comply? Oh, yeah. They were delighted. That's awesome. I was the only division commander that had done that. So they went out to the other 11 division commanders and they, hey, say, we need some lists, you know. And they did exactly what I told them to do because they mobilized half of my division. So they just went right down the list,

you know, down to eight or nine. And that was it. Now you ended up having kind of a run-in at the end of your career. Yeah, I had several. You know, and it was because of Hackworth, you know, about face. And the first one was I went on the Oprah Winfrey show. And basically, my mom was still alive at that time.

She used to watch Oprah during the day. And Oprah was out of Chicago, right? Oh, that's right. And then she used to, I didn't know this because I never watched it, but she used to announce ahead of time subjects that she was going to cover. And if anybody knew anyone who were experts in that area, let her know, you know, so she could get them. So she decided this is in the late 80s, okay? Now put yourself back at that time when the economy was not doing so hot

and the Japanese economy was doing real good because of their computers, their automobiles, their televisions. And so people were blaming the Japanese about our poor economic situation. And it was called Japan bashing. So in fact, there was a China. guys, named was Victor Chen, who was killed in Detroit by some automobile workers with baseball bats because they thought he was Japanese. He was actually Chinese. So Opa decided to have a show about Japan bashing. So she said, if anybody knows anyone, you know, the Japanese-American community

to what might be a good, you know, person on this, please let me know. Well, my mom saw that. And she said, you need to get on the show. You know, so I tried calling. I couldn't get, you know how this is. You know, I couldn't get through whatever. Well, I had at that time a very influential journalist in Chicago. His name was Irv Kupsonet, who had a very famous, it's called Kups Column. He used to interview presidents, kings and queens, political people, you know, at,

in Chicago at a restaurant. And so I called Cuff. I said, hey Cuff, you know, I'm trying to get through on this thing with Oprah. And he said, I'll see what I can do. Two hours later, I get a call from the executive producer of the show. And he says, I understand that you're a general in the Army. I said, yeah, I'm in the Army Reserves. And that you're the highest ranking Asian American in our armed forces today.

And I said, yeah, that's right. And he said, well, and I was trying to figure out where the guy was going, right? Well, he was trying to see if I could chew gum and walk at the same time. So once he figured I could do that, he said, you know, we'd like to have you on the show. Okay? So I said, fine, when is it? Tomorrow. Okay.

So I said, okay, I'm in. So I called my, at that time I was working for a New York Stock Exchange firm. And I called the headquarters in New York. I said, hey, I need a day off, so they gave it to me. And then I called the Chief of Army Reserve's office, because keep in mind I'm a two-star general, right? And I said, hey, I'm going on the Oprah show, you know. And what's the subject?

Well, the subject is Japan bashing. But I'm being invited because, you know, I'm high-ranking Japanese-American in our Army. And I'm going to wear my uniform, you know. So I get a call back. from the chief of public affairs of the Army. Now, he's a one-star. Okay, and I'm a two-star.

So he calls, and he said, I understand you're going to be on the Oprah show. Yeah, it's right. What's the subject? Japan bashing. Oh, it's not about the Army? No, it's not about the military at all. But I'm being invited because I'm the highest-ranking Japanese-American in the Army.

In the military, the whole military, and being in 0-8 at the time. And he said, well, then we don't want you to wear your uniform. Okay. And I said, listen, I take my responsibility very seriously as a role model for minorities. This is a great opportunity to let people know that we have equal opportunity in our armed forces. I don't see this as a possibility to fail. I see this is an opportunity to succeed.

And I just said, I don't really have a lot of time for this because it was going to be the next day, right? So I said, is this an order from the secretary or from the chief? I don't care. Whoever's above me. Is this an order? And he said, well, I can't tell you it's in order. And I said, well, okay, in that case, thank you very much for calling me. you know, I appreciate what you said.

I've taken it all under consideration. Bottom line, I'm wearing my uniform. And that was the end of it, okay? So he writes a memorandum for record to the chief of staff of the Army that went into my file that said, you know, I spoke to General Mukuyama. I told him it was, you know, above his pay grade levels, that he might get involved with, you know,

things that went out of hand and all that. and he basically told me that he was going to wear his uniform. So I go on the show, okay? And I'm ready. I do my homework, okay? And we come back from a commercial break, and Oprah starts out by saying, and today we have with us, Major General Jim Mukuyama, the highest ranking Asian American, Japanese American,

and our military today, camera. And I'm going to sit there in a civilian suit. I mean, what kind of a message? Would that have been? Ridiculous. I was in my class A's. Of course. Okay.

So, and the first words out of my mouth were Oprah, I want everyone to understand that whatever I say today is the opinion of Jim Mukoyama. I am not representing the Department of the Army. I'm not representing the Department of Defense. However, I am a soldier in the United States Army. I'm proud of it. We have equal opportunity in our armed forces. end of message.

And the rest of the thing went very well. They actually had a guy on there who I would affectionately refer to as a redneck. And he was blaming the Japanese for all the problems. And some of it was correct where they weren't fair in some of the economic dealings with us. You know, their markets were not as open to our products as they should have been. But on the other hand, the guy was saying some, stuff like he said well they're costing us jobs okay so i said okay who's the fourth largest automobile manufacturer in the country the answer honda america okay they have a plant in marysville ohio

that employed 3500 americans okay they can't close that plan and take it back to japan it's in the United States. And I said, I'm also tired of hearing people complain about American quality because the Honda Civics produced at that plant had fewer defects than Honda Civics that were coming from Japan. J.D. Powers. I had all this stuff. You're ready. Don't mess with the general. So then I told them, I said, and guess what? The steel for that plant comes from Indiana, which is also jobs for Americans. Then the other thing the guy said was the Asians are taking over our universities.

I said, what's that all about? And he said, well, they're getting all the scholarships. Okay. And I said, listen, the Asian Americans are not smarter than any other ethnicity or race. The reason they do so well in school is the parents get involved and they make sure that their kids study

and they emphasize the value of education. That got a huge approval from the audience, you know. So what happened was there was a, believe it or not, a federal judge in Chicago who saw that program. Okay? So he writes a letter to the Secretary of Defense saying, you know, I saw the Oprah show

and there was this major general Jim Okuyama who really did a great job for you guys and you guys should be proud of him, right? So the Secretary of Defense at that time was Dick Cheney. Okay, so he endorses the letter down to the Secretary of the Army. The Secretary of the Army endorses the letter

down to the Chief of Staff of the Army. So when that hits my file, same time the other thing hit my file, basically one canceled the other. Yeah. Did you send a photo copy of that back to the PAO? But that's, you know, so right then and there, the Army knew what they were dealing with. Because I, you know, I was, you know, it was an opportunity to show that we have equal opportunity.

Armed Forces. I tell people that one of the proudest things of my service was that when I would lose track of people's race, you know, I stopped looking at people as, as Asian American or African American or Hispanic Americans. I looked at them as private, corporal, lieutenant, whatever their job was in the military. That's how, I caught myself forgetting sometimes of people, you know, because I tell people,

everybody was all of drab. Yeah, O.D. Yeah, so that was my first thing. Now, you started to say that the book, the book, did the book start to play any kind of role in your career? Did people start talking you about, Hackworth's book?

No, not really. What I mean by that is, you know, the whole stance that he took about Vietnam to risk his career and just actually just saying, hey, I'm out of here. Because, you know, I've done this now for 30-something years. And frankly, it was weighing on him. I mean, talk about the moral injury of knowing that you're leading soldiers in combat when they could have been. the policy could have been done better,

which would have resulted in fewer casualties. Yeah, I don't know if there's a heavier weight to bear than that. That's a heavy one. And then what was the next thing you took a stance on? Well, the next thing that happened, which caused the end of my career, basically, is... I like that you say that with a smile on your face. Well, I don't regret a day.

There you go. If I had to do it again today, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And here's what happened was I was an Army Reserve guy. So for full transparency to your listeners, okay, I was on active duty for five years. I was on an Army reservist for 27 years. Okay, now the Army has three components. They have the active component, they have the Army Reserve, and they had the Army National Guard. Okay.

The Army Reserve and Army National Guard are the Social Guard. called reserve components. Now the active Army of course are the 24-7. That's their full-time job. The Army reserves are a federal force and the Army reserves fall into the normal Army chain of command, Department of the Army. We answer to the orders of the President. Okay. Army National Guard does not fall into the Army. that chain of command, nor do they report to the President. They report to the governors of each state. It's really a state organization, although 95% of their budget comes from the federal government.

And as an Army reservist for 27 years, I saw whenever it came to a redeployee, a redire reducing the Army force structure, the Army reserves would always get the short end. And the Guard would always be protected. The actors would always take care of themselves. That was never an issue. But the so-called one-army concept where everybody's supposed to be together in this, the reserves always got the short end of the stick. And the reason for that is the reserves were a national force.

Okay. We were professional in, you know, in the military, as you know, you're not supposed to be political. You're supposed to be apolitical, right? Not involved in lobbying and stuff like that. The National Guard is very political. It's jobs for the state. Okay?

So whenever there's, the National Guard has so much political clout If you look at any presidential election, just watch the week before the election in November. That's when the Guard normally has their national convention in D.C. And I can tell you, every major presidential candidate shows up. And keep in mind, they have the political support of a governor, two senators, and the congressman, right? The Army Reserve doesn't have that political clout. So frankly, we've always gotten screwed.

And so I watched that for 25 years. I said enough is enough. And so I founded a 501C3 organization called the Army Reserve Association, which was comprised of officers, enlisted, and civilians. The mission was to educate the public. and Congress about the Army Reserves. Because people, when they hear of the Reserves, they think of the National Guard.

They don't think of the Army Reserves, which has armories, and they have soldiers in every state in our union. But people don't think about that. Okay? So when Desert Storm ended, right? When Desert Storm hit, the Army mobilized both National Guard

and Reserve units. Okay, the National Guard had, now, full transparency, as I said, I'm an Army Reserve guy, okay, so I'm pretty jaded on this. You want to say that. But, you know, the National Guard has great patriots. I'm not casting aspersions on them at all, you know, but a facts are facts. And here's what happened. When does a storm hit, the National Guard had three so-called premier infantry brigades that were supposed to round out active duty divisions. One of them was the 48th out of Georgia. And there was a National Guard brigade that upon mobilization, they would be assigned

to that division, and they would go to war with the division. And what happened was when it came, and by the way, they had all the best equipment. They had better equipment than some active army battalions and brigades. They had Abrams tanks. You have to understand, this is the early 90s.

They had Abrams tanks, and they had Bradley vehicles, when a lot of active units didn't have that, okay? But they were publicized as being the premier Army National Guard combat units that were ready to go to war. Okay, when the balloon went up, The Army said, we can't send these guys.

They're just going to be cannon fodder. So they sent them to the NTC, the National Training Center in California, for 90 days. Only problem was the war ended so quick they never got to the, they never got there. All right? The reserves, on the other hand, our soldiers performed magnificently. We had helicopter units, we had medical units, we had civil affairs, we had Psiops. We, you know, our people did extremely, my training division, perfect example. You know, we were mobilized.

I had my guys in the front gates of Ford Benning within 72 hours. And my drill instructors were on the trail. My, my instructors are on the platform, teaching, you know, running the ranges and all that. And so then when it came time to downsize, is that where you, took a stand? Yeah, absolutely. What happened was that, you know, when the, so we win the desert storm,

and then the Soviet Union falls apart, and the wall comes down, right? So everybody's looking for this peace evident to transfer money from the Defense Department to social services, okay? And so the Army has a process that's called the Total Army Analysis. It's a very good,

logical process so you can determine the force structure that we need for the army. Okay. And the way it works is you look at what are the, what are we facing throughout the world? You know, what are the problem areas, you know, and then you say to yourself, okay, based on that, how many divisions do, infantry divisions do we need, how many armored units, how many helicopter, battalion, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then you face reality and you say, how much money can we really get out of Congress for this? So based on all that stuff, you come up with a force structure. Okay? The Army didn't do that.

What they did is they had the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, the Chief of Army, the Chief of Army, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, the President of the National Guard Association, which is not a government group, and the President of the Reserve Officers Association, go to a hotel, and they cut a deal. And it was called the off-site agreement because it wasn't done at the Pentagon. Well, I told you I had formed this Army Reserve Association.

I had people in that meeting. Within five minutes, I knew. what happened. And the Army Reserves really, they eliminated 80% of Army Reserve Aviation. And we had four Special Forces groups at that time in the Reserve components. There were two National Guard groups, the 19th and 20th, and two Army Reserve Special Forces groups, the 11th and the 12th. the 12th of the unit was one of the units that I was under my command. I was the deputy commanding general of an Army Reserve unit. So I'll give you an example.

We had a Black Hawk Battalion, once again, in my Army Reserve under my command, that fought in the Gulf. They were so good that Schwarzkopf selected them for his taxi unit. Okay. And they had received the, it's called the Army Aviation Association Award, Triple A Award for the best Black Hawk battalion. So that's how good these guys were. This agreement eliminated that unit out of the Army Reserves and put it into the Illinois National Guard. No, I'm a big boy. I can accept, I don't appreciate it as a taxpayer,

but I can accept waste of money or whatever. Where I draw the line in the sand is when you jeopardize soldiers' lives and the readiness of our forces. This unit overnight, what I didn't tell you was the Illinois National Guard did not have one qualified Black Hawk pilot or mechanic. They could not even fly those birds from Scott Air Force Base where we had them to the Illinois National Guard field. They had to go to the Wisconsin and Minnesota Guard to borrow pilots so they could move those birds. Now, the implication is that unit overnight went from C1, you know, the highest readiness rating down the C5, which is non-deployable,

basically, you know, and it took about three years plus to get that unit up to C3, which is just marginal deployment level. Okay, so that's one example. Another example are those special forces groups, okay? The Army looked at the four reserve component special forces groups, and they said, you know, we only need two, okay, so we'll eliminate the National Guard, groups because, you know, why does the National Guard government, why does the governor need a Farsi speaking demolitions expert?

Okay. And the last time I looked, we didn't have an insurgency in Illinois. So the National Guard says, no, we don't accept that. So the Army with their tail between their legs go back to the drawing board, and they looked at readiness, which is what they probably should have done to begin with. And they found out that the 12th group in the USA, and the Army Reserves was the best out of the four. And then it was either, I think it was the 20th out of the Guard,

was the second best. So they said, okay, we got the solution. We'll take one out of each component, right? Guard wouldn't accept that. So what did they do? They eliminated both Army Reserve groups. And I was livid because the 12th was under me at one time. I wasn't the commander of it, but it was in my.

chain. We had taken that unit from C4 to C2, which for a reserve unit to be able to get reservists to pass those special forces, fallifications. That's not easy, okay? And they eliminated that unit. Now, I'm a big boy, okay, when it came like to the helicopter units, and I said, okay, take my pilots and mechanics, take the reserve patch off their shoulder, make them national guardsmen, I'm good with it. Okay?

They wouldn't do it because it was jobs for the guard. So my guys had to find new jobs. Some of them had to actually change MOSs because there were no aviation jobs for them, right? and just think of you and I as taxpayers, how much that cost us. So now I'm getting all kinds of calls from the field. We didn't have computers at that time in the Internet, so I'd get telephone calls and faxes saying,

General, somebody's got to stand up and fight this. And that meeting I told you about that they had, I found out from my moles that, in essence, they were going to have a press conference the next day. where everybody was going to hold hands and sing kumbaya and say that the army has come up with this great agreement where everybody agrees and nobody disagrees well that wasn't true a lot of people disagreed with it so i called the vice chief of staff's office at the pentagon right not as major general jim mujama but as Jim Mokiyama, President, Army Reserve Association.

Okay? So I call asking for a return call about this press conference that's going to happen, or announcement, you know, and I didn't get a call back. So the next morning, an hour before their press conference, we sent out a press release. And we basically said, this is not good. this is you know shouldn't go through need to have a GAO study a government accounting office study and that pretty well got me into the crosshairs and so then what we did is and now keep in mind

I had never done this in my life I'd never lobbied I'd never been to Congress I'd never walked the halls you know any of that stuff we had a we actually and I think I might have sent you some of the stuff, but we had a meeting of the Army Reserve Association called for it in Washington, D.C. And I had men and women come from all over the country. And we went and we lobbied our senators and congressmen. And we told them this is wrong. This needs to be a GAO study. It needs to be studied before it's implemented.

Now, frankly, I knew we were tilting at windmills. But I had to do it because, you know, all, I was getting all these requests from sergeants and civilians and lieutenants and majors throughout the country saying, somebody's got to fight this. And they were right. So I had to do it. So then I get an invitation from a congressional subcommittee. Okay. It was not a subpoena. So I didn't have to go.

I could have said I've got a headache or I've got a conflict or whatever. but I didn't. You know, I said, yeah, I'll be there. And I went, and I testified. And a year later, I was history, shall we say. But it's, like I said, Jocko, I wouldn't hesitate in a moment to do it again. When I was in Vietnam, I knew that our generals were not standing up for us all the time like they should. And I said, ever get to a point in life or, you know, you know,

It's a difference between my career and my soldiers. The soldiers win. Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of those balanced things too is, you know, as a leader, you know, you want to tow the line. And I have people ask me this pretty regularly. Well, you know, you always say you want to support the chain of command, but what if the chain of command is wrong?

Well, it's a real simple answer. If the chain of command is wrong, and it's something that matters, like the safety of your troops, the training of your troops, then you stand up to it. You know, if it's something that doesn't matter, if they go, oh, we want you to fill out this paperwork differently than you did it yesterday. You know what I do? I do it.

Right. I don't care. You know, you want me to put my uniform on this way instead of that way? That's fine. Whatever. I'll do it. You want to start putting soldiers of jeopardy? That won't stand.

So here's what happened. Okay. While all this stuff is going on, the Washington Post puts this front page. Okay? And it talks about how the, the, this big controversy, you know, my association is right at the forefront of all this. So I'm quoted in all of it. Now, keep in mind, I'm still an active Army Reserve Major General at Traydock, right?

And in fact, before I testified, I got a call from the chief of staff at Traydock, who's a good friend of mine. We were both major generals. And he didn't tell me I shouldn't go. He kind of said that, well, you know, it's really not a good idea, you know, for you to go. And he was a good friend of mine and I said, John, you know, I understand this is, you have to do this. This is your, you know, this is your job. But I got to go. I can't, I cannot stand by and let this pass. So he understood, well, and so that was also in the Washington Post, you know, like I was

threatened. I wasn't threatened, you know. And so, so basically, I, then the, um, I, then the, Army Times wrote an editorial, which basically criticized the Army Reserves, especially in my association, you know, and saying the Army Reserves are not team players, they're cry babies, you know. But what got me is when they said they're putting out bad information. Okay, that was in their editorial, okay? So I wrote an op-ed, okay, which to their credit they published. Good for them. And in the op-ed, I said, number one, where is,

and the title of their editorial was, the enemy is us, okay? And I said, I agree with you. The enemy is us, but the problem is, number one, where is you didn't list in detail the false information that was being put out by the reserves? So you need to do that. I said that in the op-ed. They never did, by the way,

because we had never put out anything false. But the second thing I said, and I said, if we go to war in the next 18 months and this thing goes through, we're going to have people coming back in body bags that would not have. I mean, now that's a pretty serious statement.

It is indeed. Okay? And you would think, if I was chicken little, the sclyme was falling that they would have been inundated with letters from the field saying, you know, the general's gone too far, right? They didn't get one letter. And so, but, so because of the stand I took, needless to say, the army wasn't real happy with me. And a year later, when it came time to, uh, to get a new assignment, uh, surprise, surprise, I was not considered, uh, there were

no assignments that I was considered eligible for. And so I said, this's been fun. So the chief of Army Reserve actually wanted me to stay. And he said, this two shall pass. So why don't you stay? You can go into control group, which is kind of this administrative pool of people who don't have assignments. And maybe in a year or two you can come back. You know, we'll get you an assignment. And I said no. I said, you know, the Army's made it very clear. You know, they don't want my services. They don't think I have any value and I'm going to move on. I'm going to move on in life. And so that's what I did. Now, even though you moved on, you retired, you didn't stop serving by any stretch. And, you know, I look at the military outreach that you started

is really your new way of serving. Is that an accurate statement? Oh, absolutely. What, what happened? was, you know, my wife is so wonderful. She says she's not as Christian as I am, but she lives her life better than I do. And so I'm having my personal pity party feeling sorry for myself because my 32-year career is down the toilet, right? And she said, Jim, you know, God is sending you a message. Number one, that, you know, this chapter in your life is over, okay? Number two, You survived Vietnam. You also attained the rank of two-star general, which was the highest of reservists could get at that time.

And then she says, number three, and you got me as a wife. So how can I argue with that, right? But she was absolutely right. What happened was God brought other things into my life at that time. Promise Keepers, which is a men's Christian group. I got involved with a church in Chicago, Willow Creek Community Church, which is a very famous evangelical church. I led a men's small group.

I lead a men's monthly breakfast. I got involved with the Department of Veterans Affairs, which I had never been involved in before at a national level. I was a chairman of an advisory committee on minority veterans, and I was on that for five. five years. So I learned about the VA system. All of this was in preparation for me to eventually start military outreach USA about seven years ago, which is a non-profit, faith-based organization. For the very simple concept, Jaco, we're trying to develop a national network of partners, mostly houses of worship, of all faiths, by the way. and organizations like the VFW, American Legion,

Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, High Schools. This is all at the local community level that will reach out to our military community, which we define, by the way, as active duty, reserves, National Guard, veterans of all eras, and their family members. We stress the family members equally because they serve and sacrifice as well.

And to reach out to them to be a welcoming environment, to appreciate their service, recognize that, and to offer hope and help if they need it. Now, the churches and synagogues want to help, they don't know how to do it. Because they don't understand the military culture. They don't know the issues that our military community is facing. and they don't know where the resources are. That's where military outreach USA comes in. We provide all of that information.

We have webinars, we have publications, we have DVDs, we have presentations, and everything that we do is free of charge, no cost. The only thing we ask is when people join us as partners, either as a house of worship or as an organization, that they commit to take our materials and use them to help our military community. It doesn't cost them anything.

And if people want to help out military outreach USA, I know the website is military outreach.com. That's correct. And then from there, what are you looking for? Well, we have numerous programs, See, because we understand houses of worship come in all shapes and sizes. Okay? So we have different programs that they can choose from.

Some are as simple as a church can list the names of service members who are currently serving, you know, either relatives or members of the church, and people can pray for them. Prayer is so important when you're overseas, especially, in a combat situation. I know it helped me a lot when I was in combat. I needed all I could get, I'll tell you. But also, they could do things like send packages, send letters. Today, who writes letters? Nobody. You know, it's all email and all that stuff.

How about getting a letter, right, at mail call? How need is that? You know, but then we can also do things for veterans. In fact, we have two years ago, we started a program. And by the way, we have a memorandum of agreement that was signed by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2016 by the Secretary himself, which recognized military outreach USA as a national partner with them on a program that we initiated called Veterans Exiting Homelessness. Okay. Now here's the thing. The VA has done a very good job in reducing the veteran homeless population. It's still too high, but three years ago it's like 150,000. You know, it's like 50,000 now, which is still too high, but look at the reduction, okay? Well, that's created a new problem. And the problem is when they take a homeless veteran, male or female, some with kids, off the street, and they work with a case worker or a social worker, okay, and the social worker feels that they're stabilized

and now they can get them to what's called permanent housing, which is really an apartment that's subsidized by a HUDVash voucher. They give them the keys to the apartment, right? But homeless people, that's all they give them. So just think of the first time you moved into an apartment, you need stuff. Lysol, toilet paper, buckets, sponges, mops, you know, dishes. How about a bed? Homeless people, they get a one-bedroom apartment, but guess what?

They don't have a bed, right? So we came up with this program called Move In Essentials. And we listed things like we have a bathroom kit, we have a kitchen kit, we even have a beds for vets program. Nice. Okay? And what we've done is we've gone out to. our churches, our partners, you know, our organizations.

And we've asked them, can you conduct a donation drive of this stuff? Okay. I'm not asking them, collect money. Give me the stuff. Okay. And then it's delivered to the VA Medical Center, social worker. And they distribute it to the veterans. So we know they're going to veterans.

Okay. Because you know there are a lot of people out there. to be veterans who are not. And so we know they're going to veterans, and it goes out almost as quick as it comes in. This has helped us a great deal as an organization, because before, we're at a point in time where we really can move up to the next level as an organization,

but we frankly need volunteers and money, okay? Because we don't have a stamp. We've done all this on a shoestring, basically. And so with this program, we now have results that we can show people. So if people come to me and say, Jim, you know, what difference are you guys making? Two years ago, all I could say was, well, we're developing this network of partners and we're asking them to help in their communities, which did make a difference, by the way. I mean, we've prevented some suicides.

We've helped people that needed stuff, you know. But we didn't have, I don't have the staff to record all of this stuff, you know. But when we came up with this program, we have a tracking thing where we know how many veterans are being helped. We know what's been collected. And we know. So now if somebody says, what difference do you make? Okay. Since January of 2016, we have helped over.

31,000 veterans. We've collected over 750,000 items. In fact, I think it's over a million now. And valued at almost $2 million. And we just provided this month our 1,000th bed. Okay? And so now I've got stuff that I can tell people. Well, we've come up with a new program this year, and it's called Adopt a Caregiver.

See, what we're trying to do is find gaps where there's a need and nobody else is filling it. So first we did that veteran sex eating homelessness thing. Well, now there are 5.5 million military caregivers in our country. serving over 1.1 million former military. Okay. And they get some help from the VA, but not a lot, as much as they need. Okay.

So we are now going to our churches and our organizations, and we're saying we have this program, adopt a caregiver, okay? And if you want to be a caregiver, you let us know and we'll contact the local social worker and volunteer support at the VA facility near you and we'll hook you up with a caregiver that needs help now this could be anything it could be babysitting could be mowing a lawn it could be shoveling snow it could be showing up with a meal it could be just showing up and being there for three hours and let the caregiver

get a break. Okay, this is not rocket scientist stuff. It's an easy program, but it's something that if we can get this moving, like we did, the veterans exiting homelessness, it's going to be a tremendous help for our veterans. But most importantly, for the caregivers. You see, at another lifetime, my wife and I were hospice patient volunteers.

We did that for six years. So I know how it is to deal. with terminal illness, okay? But I also witnessed that it's the caregivers who are sometimes need to help more than the patient, you know. And so in this case, we've got military caregivers that need help, and we can do it through this program. Well, it sounds like, like I said,

you're continuing to serve, even though you're no longer in uniform. and I think that's probably a pretty good place to wrap up for today. And, you know, again, it's been just an absolute honor to sit down and talk with you. As we get feedback from this episode, I will come to Chicago and go to your museum and we'll do this again. Yeah, let me say one thing that I was not able to get in. And anybody who knows me would tell me, Jim, why didn't you say that? I have a standard mantra, okay? And that is, every day is a great day.

I have my faith, my family, and live in the finest country in the world. I say it every day, every chance I get. And people ask me, well, why, you know, how can you be so positive? And, you know, why do you say that? And I say, well, number one, as a very young, 24-year-old company commander in Vietnam in combat, that there were times I didn't know if I was going to be alive the next moment, much less see the next sunrise. When you're in those circumstances, what is important in life becomes real focused,

and that is faith, family, and living in the finest country in the world. Now, so then people will come back at me and say, well, how can you say that when we have so much division in our country? Okay. And I say, listen, I'm a little bit longer in tooth than you are. and when I was a kid, I've seen the improvements in our society when it comes to race relations. Now, I'm a minority, so I get it. And I told them the odds of me becoming, when I was a kid,

the odds of me becoming a major general in the United States Army were slimming next to none. Okay. When we've had an African American president who was reelected. And then I tell people, when President Kennedy was elected, that was a big deal. And a lot of people don't know why. And I say, because he was Catholic. But today, that's not a big deal, right? And in those days, that was a big deal.

So I tell people, every day is a great day. I have my faith, my family. We live in the finest country in the world. Well, that saying was challenged about five and a half years ago. when I had some health challenges, which I think I didn't mention it earlier today. No, you haven't. I was still working in the financial services industry, and I got up in the morning I was shaving. And I felt this pain in my chest.

And, I mean, it wasn't a serious pounding, and I wasn't sweating, nauseous. I didn't have a temperature. So I thought it was something I ate, you know, give it five minutes. It'll go away, right? it didn't go away. So I told my wife, this is not good. So I finished shaving and dressing, though, and she drove me to the emergency room of the hospital. So I walk in and I say, hey, you know, I've got this pain in my chest. I don't know what it is. So they do an EKG. And they said, you have had a heart attack. Well, suddenly all these doctors and nurses swoop into the ER, they undress me, they put me in a

hospital gown. I'm on a gurney and I'm on my way to the operating room, right? So I'm in the corridor and on this gurney and I say to myself, self, can you say today is a great day? And I said I absolutely can. I survive Vietnam. I have a wonderful wife and children. And I most importantly have my faith. So in 24 hours, I have three operations. The first operation was for the heart attack. So they do an angiogram. They found out my LAD, which is the widow maker artery was 90% block. So they do an angioplasty, put a sten in.

So by 10 o'clock in the morning, I'm in the recovery room. So I'm figuring, well, that's the end of it, right? That wasn't the end of it. The second thing that happened was my heart cavity started to fill up with liquid. It's called a fusion. So I had to go back in for, they had to put a hole in my chest so they could put a tube there so they could drain this liquid. And it filled up a bottle. It took about 24 hours to do that.

The third thing that happened then was my kidneys failed. So I had to go back in and they had to put another hole in my chest so they could hook up a dialyce. machine. Okay. So the standard procedure every time I was rolled into the operating room is what's your name, what's your birthday, how do you feel? Okay. So I'm on the operating table and I say Jim Mukuyama, August 3rd, 44, every day is a great day. I have my faith, my family, and live in the finest country in the world. I can't tell you the effect that had on the doctors and nurses. The first operation the doctor said, what is your faith? And I said, well, since you asked me, Doc, I said, I'm a Christian.

Christ is my Savior. You're a skilled physician, skilled nurses, but I'm in God's hands. So whatever he decides, I'm okay with. So let's get on with it. So the second operation, there was a nurse. And she said, where do you go to church? And I said, well, I attend Willow Creek Community Church. and she said, I do too.

So no coincidence. The third operation, this was the coolest thing, there was a male nurse who was wearing a camouflage gown. And I said, you must have been in the Army. Nick, I said, yeah, I was a medic. And I said, well, hey, I just want you to know. I retired as a two-star general, so take good care of me, will you? And so that was kind of my testing of all that.

Now, the final thing I tell you, which was a God thing, months later, I was going, I had to go through dialysis, okay? So I'm going through this dialysis. And three months later, I get a donor. And the donor was our daughter, okay? But our daughter is not our biological daughter. We adopted her 30-something years ago. And yet she was a match.

So, guys, when I say, every day is a great, day. I have my faith, my family, and live in the finest country in the world. I can truly say that. And every day, every day is an encouragement to me. Today was an encouragement this morning when I was honored to participate in the National Day of Prayer with the 79th Theater Sustainment Command at Las Alamitos. And this podcast is an encouragement to me. So I just want to be. want you to know that. And remember, every day is a great day. Faith, family, we live in the finest country in the world. Well, sir, even though this is my podcast and I'm supposed to talk, after that, I don't really have anything else to say. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been a complete honor to

have you. And I look forward to doing this again at some point in the future. Thank you so much. and the general has left the building and we have actually relocated back to our recording studio and just amazing opportunity and definitely thanks to thanks to Jay Mukuyama for connecting us and send a little gift to you as well so thanks for thanks for putting us together with your dad and echo yes speaking of putting things together. Yes. Sure.

Yeah. If somebody wanted to put together something for themselves, and maybe something that would, you know. Support. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Could you brief us on those things? Namely your joints.

You want to keep those together. Because it's a big deal if they're not together. So, good news. If you didn't know already, even though you didn't know already, Jock has supplements. They're called Jocko super krill. It's krill oil,

but that's not in the name. technically also jocco joint warfare also for your joints obviously take both oh there's some anti-inflammatory stuff in there too by the way something that i might have mentioned before anyway for your joints very good very important subscribe for the the recurring delivery deal yeah because you don't want to run out i'm telling you it's junk when you're out i've run out before it's whack um also discipline supplement called discipline it is a pre-workout mission, pre-study, pre-take-test, pre-cognitive enhancing supplements. Good.

This is a good one. Pre-get after it. And it tastes good. Interestingly, you know, Jocco-focused a lot on that. Tastes good. Lemon, lime, et cetera, et cetera. How many calories in this one? I don't know.

Not very many. 30. All right. There you go. So you can do it while you fast, too, technically. Depends on your metabolic response. Look, and do it before you fast. I'm not going to make any claims.

Nonetheless, it's a good one for your brain. For your body, good supplement. Also, milk. Yeah. So I was going to say, the protein powder. Yeah. So, milk, protein powder.

Do you, are we even calling it protein powder? Are we just calling it straight up milk? No, it's not. It's mook. Straight up milk. Moat. Way different, huh? With umlots.

Yeah, yeah. So that is chocolate chip, no, mint chocolate. Yeah, there's no chips. Yeah, yeah. So if you don't like mint chocolate chip, You might there's a chance you might not like this if you do like mint chocolate chip there's a real good chance There's right like I would say around 100% probability you're gonna like this one I should clarify that I mix it

Primarily with milk me too I have mixed it also plain with well not plain but with cold water It's with milk it's straight up delicious Yeah, it's like it's a milkshake you like oh what don't what? What? What? What? Well, it's cold water. It's it's like it's a milk shit Straight up it's a milkshake You like oh what? What? What? What? What? What do I truly in the world want to have for dessert? I want to have milk. Right.

With water, it's more like a ham sandwich. Sure. You know, like, okay, hey, this thing is good. I need some fuel. You don't get all fired up when you have a ham sandwich, right? Yeah. You're not, you're not reaching the next level of- Yeah, you're happy, you're not fired up though.

Yeah, that's kind of what, mulk with water is like a ham sandwich. It's better for you, but taste, taste reaction is about the same for me. Ham sandwich. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, that's with milk. With milk, so it's legit. What is it? Like a what?

Like a steak. It's like a steak. Yeah, comparatively. Dang, that's all hard to pee. Boom, Jocko's review on Malkin official. Actually, no, it's not. It's like a mint chocolate chip milkshake. That's what it's like.

Yeah. Because a steak is a different thing for me. Yeah. Steak is a little bit of a different experience. That's a really good experience. So technically, you kind of got a watch out for. No. No.

But if you look at it. You know the last fast I did? And I posted that picture and I went got that, I wouldn't got a killer steak. Yeah. And it, I think was so good. Because he did it after the fast. It was so good. Yeah.

So you got 100% of the taste. 100% of the taste. Yeah. No, more than 100%. Like 110%. Yeah. Somebody sent me. some tomahawk steaks

Yeah to my house And they came with instructions From the company that sent them on how to cook them And I don't remember the name of the company right now I followed those instructions I cook those steaks Those things were epic Yeah They were epic

Yeah So interestingly Yeah no steaks came to my house or anything like that Or any of the houses next to mine But hey they do sound good And they sound even better after Because currently we're getting our fast on. Yes.

Currently. Officially, too. Yeah. Yeah. What are we at right now? Well, I'm at you, I'm at 23 hours or something right now. I think I'm at like 18 right now. It was good.

You ate at 11 o'clock last night. Yeah. You got issues. Why? What are you doing, eating the 11 o'clock at night? Because, like, I don't really start eating until, like, later in the day. You see what I'm saying? I don't eat breakfast like that.

You see him saying, though? Yeah. Let's say I eat three meals a day, and that's not a lot, by the way. That's actually a little bit. You know, some guys, six times a day, you know, that kind. I'm not like that guy, three times a day, sometimes two. So let's say I ate my first meal, no breakfast, only water, maybe some coffee sometimes. Maybe some gatorade sometimes.

Maybe like a banana, sometimes, not a lot. Nonetheless, at noon-ish, one, maybe two, lunch. Dinner ate, like six, boom, and then again at 11. That's normal that's not that much yeah okay Do what you want to do over there Nonetheless I'm at about 18 hours give or take and that steak that you're just talking about the Tomok one sounds real good Yeah But it's better cause real fired up for that right now

Real fired up by the way you didn't even mention where you can get all this good stuff well there's even more good stuff So what I like to do is like get us real excited about everything and then it's like dang where can you get it? Oh I do want to say we have in the testing phase right now Chocolate peanut butter Mulk mulk now everyone's probably wondering hey What's up what's up with just chocolate milk? Yeah We for whatever reason I don't know if it's the complimentary of flavors, but we haven't been able to nail

The chocolate flavor the way we want it at this time Yeah, yeah the mint I don't know you know the mint is awesome Yeah, the chocolate peanut butter epic Yeah, we haven't nailed the chocolate chocolate We got vanilla the vanilla. I'm not a vanilla fan. Yeah, but the vanilla is good. I can't I can't give it nine stars because I Can't give nine stars to things that I don't personally Really love the taste of because I don't love vanilla. I'll try it again once it once we roll out with the actual Live vanilla milk

But the chocolate milk will come when we get it right but the peanut butter milk Stand by to get some Yeah, makes sense Isn't that the whole kind of defining factor of the vanilla flavor? It's like it's not supposed to be amazing. It's supposed to be vanilla. Like people will use the word vanilla to describe a meteor. I'm not saying, I'm not saying.

Let me tell you, I actually, let me tell you when when I do absolutely love vanilla flavor. You know when you go to a restaurant and you're like, all right, tonight we're going to get some. And you order dessert and you get some kind of a chocolate scenario. Let's say let's just let's just talk about a chocolate that's hot chocolate brownie Right sure yeah you roll up one of those so there's a my my local one of my local restaurants They have a dessert mm-hmm they call it the illegal Because it's so good it should be illegal yeah this is raglan sure raglan O B and what it is they take a cast iron skillet you know and they put chocolate chip cookie in there

And then and I I when they make it for us we don't we get it I don't know once every two months we'll go illegal time and that's an extra ice cream because you need it because it's got that chalk and it's hot it's so good and you know what I just realized we're on the 24 hour fast right now all we're talking about is food that's funny I'm like dang this taking kind of long but I kind of don't mind it and you're right about that vanilla thing too by the way because people do well people do use the word Vanilla to describe real middle of the road stuff. It's just, yeah, it's just vanilla, which is, you know, it's not great, but it's not junk.

It's still good. Put that on the cast iron skillet. You're 100% right. Especially when you said when you go to a restaurant, I say, bro, I know where you're going with this? And you're absolutely right. So, that being said, so what do you do then? You put some chocolate like Hershey syrup in the vanilla milk. That's a violation, huh?

Bro, that'd be a big violation. That just sounds real good right now. I'm just, that's why I have something. Nonetheless, the chocolate. Speaking of illegal, HBC. illegal for us to do see I've been on I've been fasting before and done the podcast but this is different when I know that you're yeah and this is kind of like a usually I'm just cruising at home like I've done it before for sure but I'm just

cruising at home and it's like boom yeah once you get to talking about it shoot then I and I got to drive by Wendy's on the way home too so something check either way you get all this stuff vanilla milk not right now chocolate peanut butter milk Not right now. Chocolate. Mint. Yes. Mint chocolate.

Right now. Right now. Origin mane.com. That's where you get it. Boom. And all the other, this jocco super krill. That is like everyday stuff.

You got to take that one every day. Get on the subscription thing. But these, you know, all this other stuff. Actually, all of it. Like I said, all of it. OriginMain.com. Also at OriginMain. I'll tell you what there's on there is.

Gis for Jiu-Jitsu. Very important. When you start, jujitsu or if you already started jujitsu you need a gee people still ask good and i'm glad they do because i got the answer for them what gee do i get i start jujitsu what gu do i get sometimes i ask the color and that's a whole different question but they say what brand of ghee here's the brand origin brand 100% made in america best these are the geese that like pete and all that when they make them they take into consideration all the movements of jiu jihitsu like everything even down to this

And think about it. We might not even have thought about it like outside of when you put this on. Okay, so in a regular gie they have the string to tie on the pants not the belt the string on the pants then you have a belt that goes over the the gait top all that stuff No, that's string fine we're used to it and fine That's a cool string, but you ever like put in the dryer or it got caught on something or whatever and that string gets lost in the little Toot thing I don't even how you but you see what I'm saying right? Yeah Yeah like a hoodie that'll happen to your hoodie and You got to get the hangar and you got to do this big thing if you even know how

Otherwise you're kind of screwed in a way because you got to go all up in there now Take the origin gie. These are just these details that when you get someone who's thinking of this kind of stuff when they design the whole Ghee you got some Ghee that this is one of the many reasons why you get the origin gear This one the string comes out. That's okay because it's not this this endless black hole loop holder Tunnel you sims in yeah. It's like it'll have like it's like giant thick wide belt loop Yeah, and a bunch of them too. So you have like, you know, it's it's so easy to put them in. That's even if you even want the string If you don't want the string you're like hey, I'm over strings. I don't like tying my string They give you this little bell. You'll see if you have origin gea you're like yeah, exactly exactly right Slivel lock. Yeah, well it's the name. Yeah, yeah, it's a teeny. It's a thin belt

That goes through and click you click the belt make it tight or whatever. It's like a little mini belt. You don't you don't feel it when you're rolling nothing like that Did you think you were going to feel it when you rolled? It was a question. It was a question for me too. I thought, I, you know, this seems kind of weird. Yeah. And then you put it on, you don't notice it all. You don't notice until it comes time to take it off and it's so easy.

Yeah, you're like, boom. And here's the thing, again, it's like, we probably never really thought of this until you actually do it. Like, when you're done doing it, you don't really think about it, but it's just one of those things. Or it's like, dang, this is, this is good. These are good. These are good keys. One of the many details included.

I was talking to a guy yesterday. I was getting interviewed. and I said You know, so, well, you know, he's asking me about all my different businesses, right? Whatever that means. All up in your business? Yeah. Oh, you know.

And I said, well, you know, I have an apparel company and we make, we make apparel up in Maine. Got a big factory up in Maine. And he says, oh, up in Maine. That's up in Maine, a factory in Maine. And, you know, I was like, yeah. And he was all surprised. And I said, you know what?

It's sad that you're surprised at that. because 50 years ago everybody knew that that's where they made stuff they made it up there and it all disappeared and now it's coming back and we're bringing it back

I told this guy said we're bringing it back we're bringing back manufacturing we're weaving material up there you don't know what I'm talking about people's first instinct is like oh if you want material you got to go to overseas

and you got to have you got to get it get it made in some sweatshop somewhere right that's literally what that's that's that's accepted right that's acceptable like oh you're You just know hey you can't beat those prices and you can't you can't you can't you can't Yes, you can't yeah, yes you can't and we are

We're doing it. Yeah, he gets the cotton in like North Carolina You're screwing up as his own South Carolina I believe I'm screwing it up too Get the cotton in America one of the Carolina Yeah in America The thing is I just talked to Pete and I'm pretty sure he said North could have been south. I don't know I forget And I apologize nonetheless it is in America just like how you said

And then they bring it up and here's what it is to the secret they have their looms they have their own looms You can't just walk into the store and start buying looms. You just can't do that That's why it's hard to you know to kind of that's why they have a unique situation there What's all made in America and hey everyone that is supporting us at origin Thank you because right now you know what we're doing we're expanding We're buying more machines we're buying better equipment and we're hiring more people So thank you for your support it's awesome we're we're we're We're only able to bring manufacturing back to America because of you knowing that you want to have the best and you want to made America

So thanks everyone. Yeah, thank you second that much appreciated Yeah, that's the one origin main dot com a lot of cool stuff on there some hoodies not to mention the most comfortable Pants in the world officially no officially I'm wearing them right now we go to LA today good fine you know whatever But you don't want to wear something comfortable this is my thought process before we went I'm gonna wear the most comfortable thing that I own straight up no question me origin pants boom anyway also like I said these rash guards compression gear and whatnot anyway just go there or jimane dot com get what you want also the immersion camps jiu jitsu camp you jitsu immersion

camp not concentration camp not not necessarily summer camp not band camp not it's like an immersion care immerse yourself in jiu jitsu you train as much or as little as you want but you get to be in Jiu Jitza the whole time. Boom, one week. Two sessions. You can do both if you want, by the way. Jock will be there.

I will be there. Maybe not at full capacity. The jury's still out of now. We're going to see you about some stuff. Long story. Dave Burke. Lief? It looks like Lave's to go.

J.P. Working it. Anyway, a lot of cool, fun people will be there. It's going to be a good, good time. If last year is any indicators, it's going to be a real good time. Also. if you want to vary up your work out you want to get some kettlebells

like someone just text me today well you know on DM right online what weight kettlebells should I use okay here's the thing that's a broad question that's a real broad so who are you exactly right yeah it's no actually it's an easy answer what's that I didn't think or the 48 kilogram ones yeah and potentially kill yourself or some smash it on your toe because you can't hold it or it's too light for you. I don't know. It just depends.

So it depends on how much you know about using kettlebells. Depends on how strong you are. Depends on how big you are. And it depends on what kind of... Yeah, no, that's kind of it. Well, it does know. It depends on what kind of fitness you are trying to achieve. Yeah, yes.

Because if you are trying to get big and strong, you want to get a bigger kettlebell. Yeah. If you're trying to get more Metcon conditioning and whatnot, then you get maybe a smaller kettle ball. Yeah, maybe a medium or something like that. The last point is, hey, It depends, depends, but here's the thing.

I will say this. I'm going to say this with complete bias because on it, kettlebells on it. Those are the kettlebells you get, regardless of what size. You get the artsy primal bell ones. That's the one you get. They're just way cooler. Also, if you want to vary up your workout, like I said, no boring workouts. Jocko doesn't have boring workouts apparently.

I thought he did. He doesn't. I know. But you want to make your workout. Interesting different movements functional strength and actual strength There's other stuff on there starting with like it's a spectrum it goes from jump ropes all the way up to What mate steel bells? What's a steel bell? They look like a frisbee right but they're filled with metal But what do you do with them work all kinds of stuff right see there that's the point

So there's a bunch of stuff on there anyway a lot of good stuff a lot of what did I just get though pretty cool? Oh the socks boom On it socks on it socks on it socks straight up Yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff on there on there, a lot of good information on there too. So a lot of the questions that are directed at me, I don't know the answer. I sometimes don't know the answer for me as opposed to me, some stuff I heard, but it's real flimsy a lot of time.

You go to Onet, there's a lot of information on there, so get some, as they say. Anyways, onet.com slash jaco. Good way to support. If you want something, get something. Also, when you get these books that Jocker reviews, sometimes, Hackworth's books, about face, good one.

Steal My Soldier's Hearts. Good on. Any of the books. Feel the need to get one. Hey, don't worry. Organized all the books by episode. jococopodcast.com. Go joccoopodcast.com.

Click on the top. Books from episodes. Boom, I got them organized perfectly. Click through there. Get your book. Get whatever book you want. Get two books. Get a leaf blur.

Just continue. Just do your Amazon thing and you're all good. Good way to support. Also, subscribe to the podcast. If you haven't already on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, podcast, pod bean,

There's podcast apps out there just subscribe to the podcast. That's what I'm saying. That's kind of the thing, regards to what podcast application you're using. It's a good way of support. Leave a review. If you're in the mood, just leave a review.

You know, when you kind of think about it, if you're not in the mood to leave a review, I don't even know if it's conducive to leave a review, or is it? I don't know. I say go for it.

Yeah, I say go for it. BTF, BTF, right? I say if you're in the mood, leave a review. Do you? Also, we have a YouTube channel. if you didn't know already subscribe to that one

that's a good way to support as well we have excerpts on there try to post every day try to sometimes two a day try to also on there is enhanced

excerpts you know what I mean by that I know what I mean by it you mean by it you mean you put some cinematography into the scenario you film and then you edit

with music and other special effects CGI and whatnot sure well at the very least I'll put some music on there you know Make it.

Things are exploding. Sometimes. Sometimes. You redid the War Path video, so there's no longer horrible Christmas music. No, it's not horrible. See, I put Christmas music on that because it was Christmas time. I don't care. Don't ever do that again.

You want to get Christmas Spirit? Watch the Christmas 1914 video. Yeah, that's a good one as well. That's better Christmas spirit. It's real Christmas spirit. Well, just say different. Yeah. Nonetheless, that's why I did it.

But, look, you make a good point. Hey, whatever's not Christmas. Never. put Christmas music in one of my, what are they called, excerpts. Oh, now they're yours. Oh, okay. I thought they were kind of ours. I thought we were sort of.

You know, I don't know. If I'm in it, all right. Please don't put Christmas music in our excerpts. All right. You got it. I promise. Otherwise it would be your excerpt.

Yeah, huh? I got to take that one. Actually, all right, A, I dig it. And, you know, so it's not going to be Christmas every day. The wise man once said it's not Christmas every day. So why put Christmas music on something at someone. might may or may not listen to every day so i understand so yeah i redid it you know revamp themselves sometimes i want to listen to it every day if y i my wife completely stuck up for you on

that one yeah because yeah oh it's nice christmas music it was released at christmas time okay i just went into like hiding yeah it was kind of a bummer too because that was a really i know you put a lot of time and effort into that video it took a lot of work so that so then when you showed it to me You were all excited and and the video CGI stuff is awesome right but I know that you wanted me to be just you know yeah over the top with filled with awe at the video and I was with the visuals but I was that was a lot of that was countered by Christmas songs and so what you saw from my reaction It was actually fake. Yeah, well.

It was fairly fake. There was a fair amount of realness in there, let me tell you. And I remember it and I won't forget it because you were in because, you know, you go a little bit inside where you all kind of like form it where it does like a certain thing and then it'll drop off. Then it'll come back, whatever. So there's this part where the certain part starts that I'm like, oh, he's going to, he's going to kind of like that part. Right. So I'm kind of, so I kind of look over at you as, I know super childish, but I'm like looking at you, whatever. And you're like looking at it.

And then like when that part hit and it's Christmas music, you're like, hmm, kind of like as if to say, hmm, interesting choice instead of, you know, your other thing. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. Anyway. So, we changed the Christmas music as a result. So boom. Anyway, that one. The biggest hit video of all time. Yeah, sure.

Anyway, yeah. So, yeah, enhance excerpts. That's what's on there along with, of course, the video version of this podcast, if you care. the Jocko looks like. Also, Jocko is a store. It's called Jocco Store. U.R.L is jocco store.com. It's a website. Obviously.

I know. Not that creative, but still, cool stuff on there. Stuff is creative. I think so. Go on there, shirts, hats. We even got a new hat. It's like a flex fit now.

Boom. A lot of people have been asking for that. Delivered. Gladly delivered. Anyway, who he's on there, like I said, rash guards. women's stuff some new mugs

you know what I think I'm put the tea on there so if you know if they want to have that option to get jaco white tea and international you know I think you know just more options more convenient for the people good call for everybody I think nonetheless a lot of stuff on there

if you want something just get something also psychological warfare if you don't know what that is it's an album with tracks Jocco tracks I know that sounds like

okay it's kind of esoteric jocococ tracts What does that mean here? This is what it means It means it's not him saying nothing like that So in your mom in your in your in your campaign against weakness And we're all on the path Straight it's it's like common knowledge ready all of us were on the path Like if you're if we're listening to this even me talking you listen to me We're on the path all of us

We're on great No This is inevitable I think for the most part inevitable where you know Hit moments of of weakness. Sometimes you need a little help through those moments of weakness. Sometimes you need to just slip in those moments of weakness and fall and be like, I'm not doing that again.

Sometimes that's useful. You learn, in my opinion. But in those moments of weakness where you just need a little spot, this is what jocco tracks are for. So let's say your weakness is not getting up early. You wanna hit the snooze. So what you wanna do. Too tired, I don't know, whatever.

Maybe drank a little bit, I don't know. So you're on the first. fence you're like I'm gonna hit this news just for what was what's the normal snooze 10 minutes nine minutes whatever I don't know I'm saying you're gonna tell me about that because I'm not over here the snooves button anyway actually it's not for the snooze technically it's not for hitting the snooze it's for going back to bed that's the weakness that this particular track because hitting the snooze it's like if if you if you just want to hit the snooze you're not going to have the energy to get up and you know boom maybe if you put it as your alarm

Nonetheless, this is what it is the track. It's Jocco on a specific track telling you why you should just get up and not hit this news or not stay in bed But it's like jocco pragmatic advice. It's good 100% and this goes for a diet stuff skipping workout stuff 100% Effectiveness 100% that's good speaking of 100% if you 100% 100% guaranteed want to be able to deadlift 8,000 pounds minimum you might go over that I do all you have to do

drink chocolate white tea it's that simple bro okay and the can't say I'm I gonna get sued am I gonna get sued for false advertising no because and here's why so this guy Josiah is his name huge guy tore his bicep by the way oh few weeks ago maybe a few months ago it's been a probably a few months no less big guy dead list you know has the setup right and and he'll he'll have videos there I watch them just to understand how weak I am and so he tears his bicep you know it happens and And so he there's a video actually I think this video was before he tore the bicep No, no, no it was after so he has his arm in a sling right when you have the bicep tear

So he drinks some jocco white tea with the tin pounds it and and he smashes the tin and I'm not joking This actual video smashes the tin throws the tin deadlift one bad arm one hand and it's like more than I can deadlift for real in real life One hand deadlifted for real. So Boom, proof. Proof. See what I'm saying? Proof by way of video. Josiah.

Yeah, there it is. You can get that on Amazon. Soon? Very soon. Well, I shouldn't say very soon. Within a few weeks, you're going to be able to get ready-made jaco white tea in a can. Oh, yeah. We're going to put some companies out of business.

Yeah. Because you're going to be at 7-Eleven going, oh, you know what? Oh, maybe I'll have this sugar-filled thing over here and it will make me feel like a high on a sugar. high for about 15 minutes and I want to then I want to fall asleep and be lame and I'll be getting diabetes or I can have drunk of 18 dead lift his car So anyways yeah, that's coming that's coming. I'll let you all know when that's out hey books way the warrior kid Series shows the path of hard work and discipline to kids book two is out now. It's called Mark's mission Teach your kids to be stronger faster smarter more confident teach them to have better perspective on other people how to handle verbal and physical bullying yeah teaching be warrior kids and speaking of warrior kids if you want to

support a warrior kid go to Irish Oaks ranch dot com and get some warrior kid or your kid soap made by aiden who's 13 years old owns his own business so yeah he makes jocco soap it's good to use if you want to stay clean don't forget about the discipline equals freedom field manual and you know what this is this is this This is good read read read just read one section a day legit read one section a day That will legitimately keep you on the path try you're right yeah if you want to listen to one track a day instead of read it Because maybe you're doing it in the car whatever it's not on audible It's on mp3 the Disapparing Quotes freedom field manual iTunes Amazon music Google play

Whatever you can listen to mp3's Of course, there's the leadership book, Extreme Ownership, Combat Leadership, and how to apply it to your business in life. Over a million copies of that have sold. That's a lot. And it's not because we did a big advertising campaign. It's not because we took out an advertisement in the Super Bowl series. No, it's because of word of mouth. That's why people will read it because it works.

So get that for your business in life. And actually, if you want to now order the follow-on book to Extreme Ownership, it's called the dichotomy of leadership. Laf and I just finished writing it This book will It's really gonna help leaders I can't wait to get it out there into people's hands One of the hardest things to do as leaders Is find the balance between all the dichotomies of leadership

And this will help you do that Order it now Otherwise the same thing's gonna happen Publishers won't have a copy for you and you're gonna be a mad And I'll be mad That's the way it works If you need direct leadership support for your team Contact Echelon Front

Which is my leadership consulting company It's me It's Leif Babin. It's JP to know, Dave Burke. Our website is echelonfront.com, and we solve problems through leadership. That's what we do. And, of course, there's the muster leadership seminar. By the way, 005 in Washington, D.C. sold out.

So if you want to come to muster, you can't come to that one. You've got to wait until October, 17th, and 18th in San Francisco, California. That is the next muster. And also at the muster, we will not be backstage in the green room clearing our minds in an isolation float tank. We will not be doing that. We will be with you out there the whole time talking, answering questions, working out, eating, rolling jiu-jitsu, everything. Come to the muster, pragmatic leadership training for people that are leaders, people that aspire to be leaders. And also on top of that for current military law enforcement firefighters, paramedics, other first responders

We have roll call one September 21st Dallas Texas It's one day That's about leadership in dynamic environments you can register that one as well at extreme ownership dot com And until we are together live at one of those Events whether it's the muster or it's the roll call or it's the immersion camp up in Maine if you want to communicate with us and you can do that via the interwebs where we're cruising big time I am jaco willink echo is at echo charles and also military outreach USA which is the organization that's run by general mukayama if you want to follow that they are on Twitter at

at Mill Outreach USA at Mill Outreach USA they also have their Facebook page which is military outreach USA and if you didn't catch the website the first time around military outreach USA.org great organization led by a great man general James Mukiyama and again we thank him for his service sacrifice and what he has done for our great nation and what he continues to do and I thank him for coming on the podcast to share his lessons learned and and also thanks to his son Jay for connecting us truly appreciate it was an amazing experience for me to talk through lessons learned that he learned from one of my mentors and one of my heroes Colonel David Hackworth so thank you both and thanks to all the men and women in uniform out there doing your duty holding the line protecting our flag and our freedom and to the police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics and all the other first responders that protect us day and night while we're here at home thank you for your vigilance and to everyone else that is listening factory factory workers and drywall hangers and bankers and brokers and and brokers and waiters and waitresses and cooks and dishwashers to business owners and investors and software

designers and CEOs and salespeople to everyone out there doing your best to do your best Think about those hardcore ricondos That fought and think about those hardcore ricondos that didn't come home Remember them and for them don't let us up don't slow down don't allow any slack and keep getting after it so until next time this is echo and jocco out